Dried parsley, herbs and spices from Eye, Suffolk Field to Factory in Less Than an Hour.
English parsley picked close to our dryers at Eye, plus a deep stock of tested herbs, spices and seeds.
- 3,000 acres dedicated to parsley
- AA BRCGS grade, again in 2026
- 1925 the Starke family at Chestnuts Farm
Customers include
- Unilever
- Nestlé
- McCormick
- Premier Foods
- Kerry Foods
- Symrise
- Newly Weds Foods
- Vion
From the field
Grown Close. Picked Fresh. Dried Fast.
Freshly harvested crop is what makes good dried parsley. So the fields sit close to Eye, and the leaf is in the dryers within the hour.
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Grown by local growers
We supply the seed and the agronomy. Growers are Farm Assured, and our estate team checks every field before the harvest moves in.
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Picked, not mown
Custom-built harvesters pick the leaf. The flakes come out cleaner, and the bulk index can be tailored to your jar fill.
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Dried within the hour
Trailers tip straight into the intake at Eye, seven days a week from July to the end of the season.
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Sorted, treated, tested
Colour sorters take out discoloured leaf, in-line heat treatment brings counts right down, and nothing ships before it passes.
The parsley
Cut to Your Jar Fill.
Because the leaf is picked, not mown, we can tailor the bulk index to the fill weight of your jar. Choose a cut, or send us a spec to match.
- 0.5 to 6 mm Four standard cuts, plus flat leaf, high bulk and organic
- Heat treated In line, for very low microbiological levels, on four cuts
- 10 or 20 kg Pack size depends on the cut, as listed in the table
The range
Seventeen Ranges Behind the Parsley.
Herbs that do not grow well here, such as oregano, marjoram and thyme, are re-cleaned and tested in the UK for microbiology, physical quality and pesticide residues.
- Provenance English herbs 23 lines
- Dried herbs 110 lines
- Spices, ground and whole 132 lines
- Whole seeds 21 lines
- Botanicals 162 lines
- Dried vegetables 77 lines
- Dried fruit 21 lines
- Freeze-dried fruit and veg 5 lines
- Organic herbs and spices 23 lines
- Mustards 19 lines
- Pet nutrition 37 lines
- Salts 8 lines
- Kernels 5 lines
- Vinegar and condiment powders 4 lines
- Concentrates 2 lines
- Functional ingredients 2 lines
- Camomile and essential oils On request
The ranges in green are grown in England for us. Every list is a selection, so ask for anything you cannot see.
Contract services
Bring Us Your Raw Material.
The factory at Eye is a nut-free site that can process mustard, celery, gluten, soya and natural sulphites. Martin Hoxworth, Group Sales Director, looks after contract work.
Our factory at Eye at dusk 
Inside the processing plant opened in 2022, where the parsley is dried and sorted 
Steam distillation at Chestnuts Farm, where the family’s camomile oil is made
- Colour sorting
- Bühler and Optimum Discoloured product, and anything else that differs by colour, is taken out.
- Blending and declumping
- 200 kg Minimum batch for both, to your recipe or one we develop with you.
- Milling
- 250 microns As fine as we mill, depending on fat content.
- Moisture reduction
- 10% Moisture we can bring product down to, in the roaster.
- Roasting
- Torbed 750 Whole and ground spices, bell peppers, onion and garlic.
- Steam distillation
- Since 1925 The family’s stills, distilling English essential oils.
Quality
BRCGS Grade AA. Again.
It hardly seems to even be news. In August 2026 the auditor found one minor paperwork update, and we fixed it the same day.
- Microbiological and physical testing in UKAS-accredited laboratories
- A full HACCP review every year, and independent audits on top of BRCGS
- Positive release: certified before shipment, never after
- Rigorous taste testing, so the flavour holds batch to batch
- Sedex member, and FEMAS certified for feed materials
Jack Pickerden, Technical Manager, sends specifications, and a full description of the quality system, on request.
Farming
Regenerative by 2030.
The aim: regenerative principles in all of our crop production by 2030, worked out field by field with our growers.
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Twenty-six cover crops on trial
At our field days we dig down to the water table with growers and Griffith Foods to see what the soil is doing.
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A sprayer that sees the weeds
Camera-guided spot spraying, trialled with Ecorobotix, treats the weeds and spares the crop.
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Net zero by 2050
A five-year carbon plan, solar on the warehouse roof, and a hornbeam hedge planted by the staff themselves.
- Investors in the Environment Green, the scheme’s top level
- EcoVadis Silver, top 15% of companies rated
- Farm Sustainability Assessment FSA 3.0 Silver for all our parsley
- Sustainable Spices Initiative Member, working to 50% sustainable sourcing by 2030
Chestnuts Farm
A Growing Tradition.
- 1899 Augustus Bruce Starke sets up as a supplier of essential oils.
- 1925 Augustus buys Chestnuts Farm, and his son Ronald starts distilling English camomile, sage, lavender and peppermint oils.
- 1963 Richard Bruce Starke takes over the crops, and in 1979 founds Camstar as a sister company.
- 2008 Ed Starke takes the helm. In 2015 the camomile stills come under Camstar itself.
- 2023 Camstar 1, the new factory at Eye, completes its first parsley season.
Can we contract a year’s supply?
Do samples come with a specification?
Is the factory nut free?
Can you develop a product with us?
Do you supply organic and pet food grades?
Request a sample
Your Sample, Spec Included.
Say which products and what they are for, and the sales team sends a sample with its current specification.
- Sales Tracey Clark, Sales Director
sales@camstar.co.uk - Contract services Martin Hoxworth, Group Sales Director
martin@camstar.co.uk - Specifications Jack Pickerden, Technical Manager
jack@camstar.co.uk - Sales office 01379 870669
Chestnuts Farm, Langton Green, Eye IP23 7HL
