In its decision of 26 June 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) answered a request for a preliminary ruling by the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf (Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf), ruling that medicinal herbal teas cannot be marketed with the organic logo.

SALUS, a German undertaking, marketed herbal medicinal products, including a sage medicinal herbal tea, the packaging of which bore the official organic production logo of the European Union (EU). The competing undertaking Twardy, viewed this use of the organic production logo as unlawful and asked the German courts to prohibit SALUS from marketing the medicinal herbal teas with the official organic production logo of the EU. The competent German court in Düsseldorf hearing the case submitted this question to the ECJ.

The ECJ first held, that the herbal teas were to be defined as medicinal products in the sense of Art. 16a para. 1 of Directive 2001/83 on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use (Directive 2001/83). While it was true that certain optional information may be included on the packaging of such medicinal products, this was only allowed on the condition that it is useful to the patient and is not of promotional nature. However, the court stated that information relating to the organic production of the active substances of traditional herbal medicinal products would not satisfy that condition.

Nonetheless, the ECJ held that this conclusion was without prejudice to the possibility for the competent authority to approve such a statement on the outer packaging of that medicinal product. This authorisation would be under the condition that the authority finds that the active substance has properties resulting from the organic production that have a beneficial effect on the therapeutic characteristics of the medicinal product in question.

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