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Fife mum builds buzzing business to help chronically ill son

Geordie and Bev Harrow, the mother and son behind Fife firm Herbal Health. Image: Herbal Health
Geordie and Bev Harrow, the mother and son behind Fife firm Herbal Health. Image: Herbal Health

“The whole company has come about because of one boy and his battle with quite serious, life-changing conditions.”

When Bev Harrow’s son Geordie was 11, she gave him cannabidiol (CBD) for the first time.

Struggling with complex regional pain syndrome, cyclical vomiting syndrome, hypermobility and life-threatening allergies, he was on many different medications that did not work.

After a while, Geordie swapped out all his prescription medication for CBD products.

From their home in North East Fife, Bev started making balms containing essential oils and CBD to help her son manage his conditions.

She says: “He was on a Paralympic archery pathway and training a lot outside. If he gets stung by a wasp it’s instant anaphylaxis, so it was always a concern.

“I did research and came up with my Buzz Off balm, which confuses insects’ receptors and stops them from biting.

Range of Buzz Off products.
Herbal Health’s journey started with Bev’s Buzz Off balm. Image: Herbal Health.

“Then I thought, ‘How can I change the balm and create something for his pain?’

“That’s when Recover came along, then Ninja and then Relax.”

After a year of making balms for Geordie, Bev launched Herbal Health in 2019 and started selling her products online.

A turning point for Herbal Health

The business was ticking along, but when Bev’s mum and dad ended up in end-of-life care over lockdown her priority became keeping them together until the end.

“The previous six months had been difficult with keeping them together but my sister and I had vowed we’d be with them to the end,” she recalls.

“Just after my mum passed I was sitting at the side of the bed, holding her hand, thinking to myself ‘we kept our promise to them, but what do I do now’.

“I had this app which makes your phone ring like a till when you get an order. At that time, we were getting one or two orders a day.

“My phone did the cash register sound eight times in a row. And from that day it never stopped.”

Herbal Health now offers balms, sprays and bath oils with CBD, as well as balms for pets.

Herbal Health founder Bev Harrow with her son Geordie and partner Murray Elliot. Image: Herbal Health

All products are hand poured by Bev, while her sister Debi, friend Kate and partner Murray help out with different aspects of the business.

Growth from social media

Since Geordie was young, Bev has shared his journey with CBD products in Facebook groups.

The groups started after she discovered CBD Brothers, a firm growing cannabis in the UK.

Online she could talk to others about their products and how they changed her son’s life.

Bev says: “About 25,000 people have come on this journey with us.

“They’ve seen what a sickly little boy Geordie was, and now he’s this young man who doesn’t take any prescription medication.

“I wake up at 6am every morning and I’m straight into my groups, catching up, checking pending posts, answering queries.

“I don’t log off until 10pm and during the day I’m also doing orders, running my business and talking to people about CBD.”

Each order always contains a handwritten note. Image: Herbal Health.

Through social media, Herbal Health has grown from one or two orders per day to more than 30.

Since the start of the pandemic, Bev estimates their sales have increased 1,000%.

‘My biggest fear is going viral’

Despite the business now booming, Bev has some fears about the future of the firm.

“The biggest fear for me would be going viral. We wouldn’t be able to cope with 100 orders a day,” she says.

“We’ve had offers from bigger companies to scale it up and get into shops, but I don’t want to lose our personal touch.

“I didn’t create the company to make money, I did it to get the word out about CBD and to be able to help other people that were in the same situations as Geordie.

“Even if somebody came along tomorrow and said I’ll give you £5 million to walk away, I won’t.”

Since the beginning, Bev has used CBD Brothers’ ingredients in her balms. Image: Herbal Health

Geordie is now 18 and doing an HND in software engineering, hoping to enter third year of a degree at Abertay University.

One day, Bev plans to pass the company on to him.

“The company is a blessing, because my son is alive and without CBD he wouldn’t be,” she says.

“Ultimately, this will be Geordie’s company and what a wonderful circle that will be.

“It came from a desire to help him and to change his life. But in so doing, it changed all our lives and it made me a different person.”

Conversation