Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why do your products need to be refrigerated BEFORE AND AFTER opening?
Our products are sold live and unpasteurised, meaning they contain live probiotic bacteria, if they are left out of the fridge for extended periods they will continue to ferment, creating CO2 as a by-product, meaning pressure can build up in the container, they will also change in flavour the more they ferment. Pathogenic bacteria cannot grow in our products as they are too acidic and contain 2% salt by weight.
2. Are your products hand made?
Yes! Our products are true artisan products made by hand on our premises in North London
3. Why do you only do next day shipping?
Our product is live and requires chilled shipping, to ensure it reaches you in the best condition we do not risk 48hr delivery, in case there is some delay. – If there is however there will be nothing wrong with the food, but it may have built a small amount of pressure within, the best way to deal with this is to open the lid before shaking the bottle to mix the contents.
4. Why is your shipping so expensive?
Unfortunately being a small scale manufacturer of a product that requires chilled shipping, AND the fact that we don’t want to damage the environment, our shipping costs are high. We do not currently pass on all these costs – the true cost of our shipping is a third higher than what we charge back to our customers. The good news is – we’re working constantly to bring these costs down, as we are with all our costs as we want our products to be able to help the largest number of people.
5. What do you mean when you say your products are ‘live’?
All our products are produced by lacto-fermentation, which means predominantly bacteria and yeast process them and preserve them by virtue of their production of lactic acid which reduces the pH and prevents pathogens from growing within the product. So they literally have live organisms that are good for your gut and good for inflammation living within them!
6. Are your products all gluten free?
Yes! We cannot control the allergens at our premises, so we test all batches to ensure they gluten free <20ppm.
7. Why organic?
- Organically produced food contains more nutrients than industrially produced food.
- Organic soil contains a more diverse set of micro-organisms than non organic soil, which means the fruit and veg have more diverse microbes on their surfaces and as a large number of our products are ‘wild fermented’ meaning fermented without a cultured just using the bacteria present on the surface of the ingredients, they have more scope for diversity in their constitution – meaning you consume a more diverse and changing set of bacteria from our products and the science shows that more diversity in your microbiome is a key marker of health.
- Organic food doesn’t have pesticides deliberately sprayed all over it, which are designed to kill life and are not safe for human consumption above certain levels (some argue at all) indeed the most widely used pesticide in the world is classified as ‘probably carcinogenic’ by the World Health Organisation and have been shown to cause gut dysbiosis (BAD) basically, it messes up your microbiome.
- Pesticides reduce biodiversity, and we are indiscriminately spraying them over huge swathes of the Earth. The climate crisis is exacerbated by biodiversity loss and we at Wild & Cultured value having an habitable planet to live on, and we love the diversity of life!
- Industrial fertiliser run off poisons our waterways causing algal and bacterial blooms that wipe out higher life by consuming all the oxygen in the water. There are vast dead zones in our oceans caused by this already (thousands of square miles in area!). We don’t want to be a part of more planetary destruction.
So basically it is considerably better for your health and the health of our planet.
