Host Scott Herbert gets frank about his passion for Chicago-Style Hot Dogs and shares the secret to a frosty Root Beer Float.

Update: June 13, 2010

Since I wrote this post about two years ago, we’ve had a few changes and I wanted to make sure anyone reading this is up to speed on current information.

As of this summer (2010), we are no longer sourcing any of our Whole Foods Market 365 Everyday Value food products from China EXCEPT for frozen edamame (shelled and unshelled, organic and conventional). This means that out of more than 2,000 365 Everyday Value products right now, only ten are from China. These products include tea and frozen vegetables. We will be selling through the remaining stock of six of those over the summer, and the edamame will be the only one remaining at that time.

I want to be really clear that we didn’t stop sourcing from China because of quality or food safety concerns. As I explain in the post below, we have always had great confidence in our vendor partners in China, and we have taken great steps – including visiting farms and processing facilities ourselves, in addition to organic certification — to verify that those suppliers have the same level of integrity and commitment to quality as the rest of our partners across the world.

Our move to other sources is simply that through a routine bidding process, we found several suppliers in other countries, including the U.S., that offered the same or better quality at better prices. This was primarily a business decision – changing vendors was a good decision for our customers right now. As mentioned, we will continue to source edamame from China because we are not able to find the same high quality edamame for the same price anywhere else. (In order to provide our customers with a choice, we also stock a premium, domestic frozen edamame from Columbia River Organics, a family-owned farm in Washington State.)

While some of our customers have questioned our sourcing from China, ultimately this was a business decision based on maintaining or improving both the quality and price of our private label products. It’s possible that we will source more products from China again in the future. The bottom line is that beyond quality and price, we give our customers many choices in the products we offer and where they are sourced.

Another important clarification: it has always been our policy and practice to clearly label fresh produce with its country of origin. While we do not purchase fresh produce from China for national distribution, in some circumstances stores may bring in Chinese products such as edamame, ginger, shiitake mushroom and garlic. For example, in the Vancouver market items with origins in Asia are very common and in high demand. Product of China may be among our offerings in select markets such as Vancouver BC. Again, there is always country of origin labeling by all fresh produce.

We appreciate all of your feedback. Read on for more details.

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Original Post

I spend more than half my work time thinking about, researching and talking about organic food. As part of my job as Quality Standards and Organic Programs Coordinator, I work with our stores and suppliers to help them understand and follow the National Organic Standards, to ensure that what they’re selling as organic truly is. I also work with non-profit organizations, certifiers and others to support organic agriculture, and I carefully follow the USDA’s National Organic Program and their ongoing work on the standard. Given all my work with organics, the Whole Story Blog powers-that-be asked me to answer one of the more perplexing questions that’s been floating around lately: Can organic food from China truly be organic? Read the rest of this entry »

For anyone who is interested in the business practices behind Whole Foods Market, you may want to check out John Mackey’s blog. An occasional blog, John shares his thoughts about creating a new business paradigm, addressing issues facing the natural and organic food industry, and exploring the nature of human development. John will be speaking on Conscious Capitalism in Austin, Texas on June 12, 2008. The event serves as a fundraiser for FLOW, a non-profit organization that John co-founded in 2004. More about it on his blog.

I’ve been hearing some questions about whether it’s possible to get organic products from China, so I went to Margaret Wittenberg to find out the inside scoop. Margaret has been with Whole Foods Market for about 27 years and she served on the National Organic Standards Board and helped write the USDA Organic Rule, so I figured she would be in the know. (Transparency alert: Margaret was my Team Leader for many years and I love this woman. Her integrity is unbelievable!)

Anyway, here’s a quick blurb from Margaret on the whole organics in China deal:

Whole Foods Market is a transparent company. We take pride in informing our customers about where our products come from so they can make conscious buying choices. The reality nowadays is that sourcing high quality organic products has gone global. Many companies play the game of sourcing ingredients from one country and packaging them elsewhere so they can be labeled from the country they were packaged in. Not at Whole Foods Market. For example, our Private Label team sources a few high quality organic products from China and we let our shoppers know that up front. We go to great lengths to ensure that the quality and organic integrity is there every step of the way, whether we are sourcing our products from around the corner or around the globe. We are proud of the processes, safeguards and protocols we have in place and we want our customers to know exactly what we do when it comes to sourcing.

If you want to know more about our organic sourcing, check out “Sources You Can Trust” – new info just posted to our website. We plan to have more on this topic this Friday. Got a specific question about organic sourcing? Let me know and I’ll try to make sure it is answered with the info posting Friday.

Successful salads are healthy salads. Tune in to hear our salad wizard, Alana Sugar, give us the scoop on how to create salads that sing with health and flavor.

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Don’t let sprains, strains and pain get in the way of your summer fun! Discover homeopathic, herbal and lifestyle recommendations for supporting the muscles, joints and whole body before during and after your activities. Dr. Tiffany Binder is a Naturopathic Physician, a general health care practitioner and a leading expert in nutrition and supplements.

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Thanks for checking out our new and improved blog. We’re really excited to have this space and wanted to give you a quick heads up about what we plan to do with it.

Many passionate people work here and they know the inside scoop about what’s happening in their area of expertise — organics, local growers, body care, green practices, social responsibility, micro-lending and all kinds of food-related stuff. Since we share this info with each other all the time, we figured you’d be interested too! We are lining up quite a few different writers to blog about what’s going on around here.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Scott Herbert shares his grilling secrets for making Bacon Wrapped Shrimp Skewers with Honey Chipotle BBQ Glaze. Plus, discover a better tasting, better-for-you bacon that features 40 percent less fat than most bacon!