Some medicinal plant materials require specific processing to: improve the purity of the plant part being employed; reduce drying time; prevent damage from mould, other microorganisms and insects; detoxify indigenous toxic ingredients; and enhance therapeutic efficacy. Common specific processing practices include pre-selection, peeling the skins of roots and rhizomes, boiling in water, steaming, soaking, pickling, distillation, fumigation, roasting, natural fermentation, treatment with lime and chopping. Processing procedures involving the formation of certain shapes, bundling and special drying may also have an impact on the quality of the medicinal plant materials.

Antimicrobial treatments of medicinal plant materials (raw or processed) by various methods, including irradiation, must be declared and the materials must be labelled as required. Only suitably trained staff using approved equipment should carry out such applications, and they should be conducted in accordance with standard operating procedures and national and/or regional regulations in both the grower/collector country and the end-user country. Maximum residue limits, as stipulated by national and/or regional authorities, should be respected.