There are almost as many reasons to choose organic food as there are people who choose it, spanning from environmental benefits to avoiding pesticide residues to amazing flavor to certain nutritional advantages.  In the interest of space I’ll focus on a few of the most important benefits, and exactly what we know “organic” means in the grocery store.

Since 2002, the USDA’s National Organic Standards have served as the Federal regulation that governs what foods can be sold as organic. This standard is managed by the National Organic Program, which is advised by National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), a 15-member board made up of organic stakeholders including farmers, ranchers, researchers, environmentalists and retailers. I serve as the retail representative on that board through 2015.

The USDA has strict requirements for all food sold as “organic” in the United States:

• Organic agriculture uses no potentially harmful persistent pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. A “National List” of allowed and prohibited substances, set by the NOSB, regulates substances used for crops, livestock and food processing.
• Growers and ranchers use earth-friendly methods that improve biodiversity and minimize environmental impact.
• Animals are allowed to fulfill their natural behaviors, are fed organically-grown feed, given fresh air and outdoor access, and no antibiotics or growth hormones.
• Organic products must be certified and contain at least 95% organic ingredients. Any ingredients used in the non-organic 5% must be from a short list of additives approved by the NOSB.
• No irradiation, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or synthetic preservatives are allowed in organic processed products.
• All organic producers must be certified by a USDA-accredited certifying agent. There are about 100 accredited certifiers, such as CCOF, QAI and Oregon Tilth.

The clear definition of organic set forth in these standards has built confidence in the organic label and helped substantially grow the number of acres of land farmed organically over the past ten years. And the new Canadian Organic Regulation and the European Union (EU) Organic Regulation contain very similar requirements.

Over the past few decades organic has grown from a small movement to a significant agricultural force in the US, with organic food now representing around 4% of US food sales. With that growth has come an increase in the amount of academic and governmental research on the environmental, nutritional and other benefits of organic. Here’s a short synopsis of what we know:

Organic Food has fewer synthetic pesticide residues. In the US, 1.1 billion pounds of synthetic pesticides are applied to conventional crops each year. These substances, by law, cannot be applied to organic crops. The growth of organic food over the past decade is a testament to the fact that, for a variety of reasons, a growing number of food buyers are looking to avoid conventional agricultural chemicals, and the USDA Organic Standards (along with the Canadian Organic Regulation, the EU Organic Standards, and many others worldwide) provide a clearly defined and labeled alternative to conventionally grown food.

Organic farming is better for the environment. Aside from not using persistent pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, organic farmers do a whole lot more to benefit the environment. The basic principles of organic agriculture – and the USDA Organic Standards – require growers to look at the soil as a living organism, and nurture the microorganisms, nutrients and minerals in the soils in environmentally beneficial ways. Where conventional farmers often rely on massive doses of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer to feed crops, organic farmers tend to nourish their crops by truly cultivating the living system of the soil. Through the use of compost, manure, and cover crops (crops like legumes and clover that are grown and plowed under), the organic farmer builds up natural sources of nitrogen in the soil.  These practices result in stable, living soil systems that are naturally more resistant to erosion and avoids the harmful runoff of nitrogen fertilizers and persistent pesticides.

A growing body of evidence suggests organic food is more nutritious. A growing body of research is beginning to support the idea that in many cases, organic food presents nutritional advantages over conventionally grown foods. The team at The Organic Center has worked for many years to track, interpret and communicate this research on the advantages of organic, and you can find a number of very good summaries on their website. For example, the Organic Center conducted a 2008 meta-analysis (a review of hundreds of other studies) – to look at the differences between organic and conventional that had been discovered so far. From the hundreds of studies, they identified 236 scientifically valid “matched pairs” of organic and conventional foods, and found the organic foods were nutritionally superior in 67% of the cases, vs. 37% for conventional. In general, the organic samples contained higher levels of antioxidants and polyphenols (in nearly 75% of the pairs for which those substances were measured). Over the whole set of pairs, the nutritional premium of organic averaged 25%. Keep in mind that the several hundred studies used here are a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands done on conventional food, and recent research has been even more compelling.

This small body of research will continue to grow as consumer, government and academic interest in organic agriculture increases. I’m very optimistic that science will support what so many of us already suspect: that plants grown slowly and naturally in healthy, rich soil will produce healthy, nutrient-rich vegetables.

For more information:

• The Organic Center
• The Rodale Institute
• Organic Farming Research Foundation

What are some of your reasons for supporting organic agriculture?

Read on for a chance to win a case of Nature’s Path Organic Granola Bars for telling us what you think about GMOs.

Get Up to Speed…
…on the basic scoop about GMOs. Genetically modified organisms — also called genetically engineered organisms — are plants or animals where portions of the DNA from one organism are introduced into and made part of the DNA of another. There are a number of GMO crops currently grown in the U.S., including soy, corn, cotton, sugar beets and canola. GMO crops grown today may be insect-resistant (they grow their own insecticides) or herbicide-resistant (they withstand spraying by commercial herbicides). Know this already? Go to the head of the class! Better yet, go to the Non-GMO Project website to learn more.

Take Action
Want to make your voice heard? The Center for Food Safety and their True Food Network is a good place to start. They are working to protect human health and the environment by curbing the proliferation of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. Their True Food Network is where concerned citizens can voice their opinions about critical food safety issues, and advocate for a socially just, democratic, and sustainable food system. It’s free to join, and you will get updates and action alerts on simple things you can do to make a difference

Celebrate
Get out there and support the vendors who are making the effort to go through the Non-GMO verification process! We have signs in our stores to help you find the products that have the Non-GMO Verified seal. This includes the first batch of verified products from our 365 brand — our full line of corn chips. While all of our private label products are enrolled for certification, these are the first to complete the process. Additionally, we encourage shoppers who are avoiding GMOs to choose organic products. You can also find a list of all of the participating products here.

Please note that the site lists both enrolled products (products that have signed up for verification) and verified products (products that have gone through the verification process). This symbol appears next to the verified products:

Do you care about GMOs?  For a chance to win a case of Nature’s Path Organic Granola Bars (Non-GMO Project Verified, of course!), enter your comment by October 20th telling us why non-GMO products are important to you.

And don’t forget to wish everyone you pass a Happy Non-GMO Day!

I’ve written about the Non-GMO Project on this blog once before, when we announced our strong support of the initiative and its seal. Now I’m extremely happy to announce that the actual seal is on actual products in many aisles of our stores!

Several years back, while developing a non-GMO standard for our private label products, we learned about a small group of retailers, co-ops and food makers who were doing the exact same thing that we were. They called themselves “The Non-GMO Project,” and we joined their effort because we knew that our goal – preserving the availability of Non-GMO food in North America – would have a much greater chance of success if we all worked together. The Non-GMO Project, working with industry leaders and technical experts, developed the first third-party certification program for products that avoid the intentional use of GMOs, which governs segregation and manufacturing practices along with testing and documentation protocols. Manufacturers who earn the use of the seal have to prove that they are doing everything they can to keep GMOs out of their products.

We know a large number of our shoppers want to avoid GMOs, for a variety of reasons, and we believe strongly in providing clear and transparent labeling for products that avoid GMOs. The Non-GMO Project is critical to our success in this effort, because it provides a common language for the entire supply chain – from seed growers to retailers – to use in verifying and identifying non-GMO food products. This strong standard give the seal great integrity and empowers growers, food makers, retailers and shoppers to make informed decisions based on reliable, verified information. It’s the first seal of its kind — the best seal of its kind — and we want to help make it into a powerful emblem for products whose makers have truly verified that they do everything they can to avoid GMOs.

Unfortunately, due to pollen drift in the field and cross-contamination, there’s virtually no such thing as completely GMO-free. However, the Non-GMO Project standards set thresholds and prescribe practices to ensure that the products bearing the seal are made without the intentional use of any GMOs, and that they follow a clear set of best practices to avoid cross-contamination.

In 2009, Whole Foods Market announce that we had enrolled our entire private label – all of our store brand products sold under the 365 Every Day Value and Whole Foods Market labels – in the verification program. You may have noticed that several varieties of our corn tortilla chips already have the Non-GMO Project Verified seal. Now, we’re celebrating the next batch of our private label products and products from our vendor partners to earn the seal. For a complete list of our products and those from other food makers, visit the Non-GMO Project Website. Stop by your local store to check out these products, and if you don’t see your favorite food maker on the list, let them know you’d like to see their products verified by the Non-GMO Project.

In our own stores, however, we’ve taken a giant leap toward ensuring our shoppers that the word “organic” has the same strong meaning in every department of the store. Last week, we announced that as of June 1, 2011, all organic personal care products sold in our U.S. stores will have to be certified organic. These guidelines will require quite a few of our suppliers to become certified, change their labels, reformulate their products and take other measures to comply with our guidelines. We’re taking this huge step, and asking our suppliers to make these changes, because we believe very strongly that the meaning of the word “organic” shouldn’t change as you walk around the store. In the grocery aisles, an “organic” product is made of at least 95% organic agricultural materials grown using earth-friendly practices without toxic or persistent pesticides (and the remaining 5% can only contain carefully vetted substances from a short list of approved additives). Now, the word “organic” in our body care departments will signify that same set of ideals.

Here’s our guidelines in a nutshell:

• Products claiming to be “organic” – e.g. “Organic Shampoo” – must be certified to the USDA NOP standard, the same standard to which organic foods must be certified. This standard requires 95% organic ingredients and places strict restrictions on the substances that can be used in the remaining 5%.
• Products claiming to be “made with organic _____” – e.g. “Made with organic essential oils and extracts” – must be certified to the USDA NOP “made with organic” standard, which requires at least 70% organic ingredients and places strict restrictions on the substances that can be used in the remaining 30%.
• Products making the claim “contains organic _____” – e.g “Contains organic rosemary, clove and thyme oils” – must be certified to the NSF 305 Personal Care Standard. This consensus-based standard requires at least 70% organic ingredients, and like the USDA NOP standard, places strict restrictions on the substances that can be used in the remaining 30%. However, this standard allows for a small number of substances and processes that are not allowed in the USDA standard for food (since the standard as it exists now is aimed at food, not personal care), that have been carefully reviewed by the NSF International Joint Committee on Organic Personal Care (of which I’m a member), which is made up of manufacturers, retailers, regulators, certifiers, consumer groups and others stakeholders.

We’ve been very frustrated by years of confusion and misunderstanding in the marketplace about just what “organic” means in the body care aisles. We’ve seen all sorts of products with varying levels of organic content that claim to be organic, and it’s time to level the playing field. With this announcement, we’re ensuring that the organic label retains its strong meaning, and that organic personal care manufacturers have to go through the same level of oversight and practice the same level of integrity as food makers currently do. This will make it easier for shoppers to trust the organic label in our stores, and help the organic personal care products market evolve and grow.

Our hope is that someday the USDA will regulate organic personal care products just as it does food. In our testimony before the National Organic Standards Board last November, we expressed our strong support of the Board’s recommendation that the USDA regulate personal care products, and we commented that:

We and our shoppers expect a consistent definition of “organic” throughout the store, and the jurisdictional borders between Federal agencies should not ultimately derail this goal. The consistent regulation of the “organic” label across all product categories will increase consumer confidence, improve integrity, curtail deceptive labeling claims, and substantially increase the use of USDA Organic agricultural ingredients in personal care products.

In January, the FDA indicated that it was considering the issue, and in April, the USDA announced that it was pursuing discussions with the FDA. We are closely following the government’s work on this issue, and will continue to offer our perspective and guidance. We hope that the agencies work quickly to come up with a solution to this problem, but in the absence of government regulation, our new guidelines will ensure that our shoppers can trust the organic label no matter what department they’re shopping in.

Every single bite of food we take has deep agricultural, environmental and nutritional significance. The bowl of cereal I’m eating right now contains corn (which might be organically grown or not, genetically modified or not) and is bathed in milk (which might be organic or not, from cows given synthetic growth hormones or not, or it could be soy milk — GMO or not, organic or not, and let’s not even get into almond, hemp or rice milks). That yellow color could be natural or not, and the whole box could be preserved with synthetic preservatives to make its shelf life virtually infinite. This is a very simple meal (eight ingredients), and a relatively minor one in the grand scheme of my day, but the choices I’ve made with this little meal have touched at least half a dozen different crops, some cows, growers and my own health.

The relationship between a meal and the rest of the universe is complicated and gets more so when we start talking about meat, seafood and products imported from other countries. My point here is that what seems to be a tiny choice (what to eat for breakfast) can actually have deep significance when we consider the collective impact of the 1100 or so meals we each eat every year.

The incredible growth of the natural and organic food industry over the past 30 years has been driven by individual food choices made about specific meals. Yet considering that organic currently makes up just 4% of US agriculture; GMO crops make up almost all corn, soy, canola, sugar and cotton production in the US; our kids are getting fatter; and unhealthy food is getting cheaper, it sometimes seems like our movement – natural and organic foods – has barely made a scratch in the mainstream of conventional food.

“Let’s Retake Our Plates” is a Whole Foods Market initiative designed to highlight the things we all can do to continue this movement towards better food. In choosing between various types of food, we really are voting with our dollars and have the power to accept or reject so many ways of growing crops, raising animals, impacting the environment and feeding our bodies. The plate (or take-out container or smoothie cup or whatever) is the point where we, as eaters, intersect with the systems and practices through which that food is grown, raised, processed and marketed.

For us, as a company, “retaking” takes place on so many levels – our standards for the food we sell, the nonprofit groups we partner with, the suppliers we work with, and the advocacy we do to fight for stricter organic standards and better lives for farm animals. Throughout the month we’ll explore the details of all of these and more.

The main reason I love my job is that the work my team and I do is at the core of our company’s constant “retaking” of our plates. More to come throughout the month, but here’s a super-abridged overview:

• Our quality standards: Our founders started this company as an alternative to the conventional grocery stores of the 1970s and 1980s, when artificially processed, preserved, colored and flavored foods were taking over and it became increasingly difficult to find simple, fresh, natural foods. Our quality standards continue to serve as our definition of “natural” – a concise list of acceptable and unacceptable ingredients that ensure our food meets your expectations of natural.

• Organics: We’ve done more to support organic agriculture in the US than any other retailer, since the very beginning. Rather than just sell organic food, we’ve helped grow the organic market by actively promoting organic and pushing for strict standards. We pressed for and helped develop National Organic Standards. Our VP of Quality Standards, Margaret Wittenberg (also my boss) was the sole retail representative on the National Organic Standards Board from 1995-2000, as the standards were being developed, and I’m humbled to have been picked by the USDA to hold that same seat from 2010-2015.

• GMOs: We’ve been worked up about this issue since the first GMO crops were approved in the US and continue to ramp up the work we’re doing. We do not believe that natural foods and genetic engineering are compatible ideas, and we’ve banded together with other retailers, manufacturers and industry stakeholders to form The Non-GMO Project, a non-profit that helps verify and identify food products as non-GMO. We’ve committed to enrolling our entire Whole Foods Market store brand product line, and the list of enrolled and verified products keeps growing.

This is just a small sampling of the work we do to advocate for better food, and I’m only one of thousands doing this work throughout our company.

There are very few simple answers to the question “What should I eat?” and the quest for those answers has driven us, as individuals and as a company, as we’ve grown over the last thirty years. And there will always be disagreements about how food should be grown and made and sold, and I hope that those disagreements bring fertile, productive discussion that continues to make our food better and better. The first step is to ask critically where each bite comes from, digging deeper and deeper, and acknowledging that every bite of food has a story. Learn more at Let’s Retake Our Plates.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently considering whether or not to approve the use of genetically engineered (GE) Roundup-Ready alfalfa. Their report says you don’t care about GMOs in organics. Comments are due to them by February 16th, so read on to hear how you can help. (Or go directly to the True Food Project’s Take Action website.)

As part of the approval process, they are required to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a detailed analysis of how the crop will affect the environment, organic and conventional farmers, farm animals, and the public. They’ve released their EIS on GE alfalfa, and here’s how the True Food Network at The Center for Food Safety summarized the issue in a recent Action Alert:

In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in a rigorous analysis known as an environmental impact statement (or EIS). USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. This is the first time the USDA has done this type of analysis for any GE crop. Therefore, the final decision will have broad implications for all GE crops.

That Environmental Impact Statement, unfortunately, contains a number of questionable statements and conclusions. The part of the EIS that worries us the most is the claim that buyers of organic foods don’t care if those products are contaminated with GMOs (genetically modified, or genetically engineered, organisms). We know that nothing could be further from the truth, and that a huge number of our shoppers care deeply about avoiding GMOs in the foods they buy. We’ve gone to great lengths to keep GMOs out of organic foods and, through our work with The Non-GMO Project, have helped advance North America’s first standards and verification program for Non-GMO foods. We are intent on preserving our ability to provide non-GMO options for our shoppers. Every newly-approved GMO crop erodes our ability to provide non-GMO food, and leads to contamination of organic and non-GMO crops, due to pollen drift and other forms of contamination.

What can YOU do?

The True Food Project has set up a Take Action website to help you easily submit your comments to the USDA. These are due by February 16th so take the time to do it now. Please use the CFS’s form letter as a guide and personalize it as you see fit – let the USDA know exactly why you’re concerned about this issue, what you think about GMOs in your food, and what you think they should do with the approval of GE alfalfa.

In our own comments to the USDA, we emphasized a few key facts:

• Organic and natural foods consumers do care about the presence of GMOs in their food. In fact, avoiding genetically engineered ingredients is one of the key reasons that shoppers seek out organic foods.
• The contamination of organic and non-GE crops by GE material has presented a huge burden for our company and our industry.
• The unchecked proliferation of GE crops will directly harm organic producers and the integrity of the organic label.
• The approval of GE alfalfa would do more harm than previously approved GE crops, since alfalfa is a perennial crop.

Everyone has their own opinion about GMOs; please tell your story to the USDA via the True Food Project action campaign by February 16th. We’d love to read what you think in the comment section below, but make sure you send your comments to the USDA first!

While the National Organic Standards already require access to pasture for ruminant animals, this enhancement lays out very specific requirements:

• Animals must graze pasture during the grazing season, which must be at least 120 days per year;
• Animals must obtain a minimum of 30 percent dry matter intake from grazing pasture during the grazing season;
• Producers must have a pasture management plan and manage pasture as a crop to meet the feed requirements for the grazing animals and to protect soil and water quality; and,
• Livestock are exempt from the 30 percent dry matter intake requirements during the finish feeding period, not to exceed 120 days. Livestock must have access to pasture during the finishing phase.

We’ve supported this enhancement through our testimony and comments to the USDA and the National Organic Standard Board over the past four years. We intend to carefully review the final rule and provide our comments to the USDA.

This change is a giant victory for the integrity and continued growth of the organic label, since it adds clearer definition to the role of pasture in organic livestock production. Our experience with our customers confirms that there is an overwhelming consumer expectation that organic livestock are grazed on pasture, which allows ruminant animals to fulfill their natural behaviors.

Stay tuned for more updates, and for more information, check out the USDA’s press release and Q&A on the changes.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a chemical used to make plastics and other materials used in many food packaging applications, from can linings to baby bottles (see my last post on BPA for some background). Many of us who have been working on the BPA issue for years were quite surprised, on Friday, to learn that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had changed its position on the chemical, admitting for the first time that they, too, have questions about its safety. For as long as they’ve had a position on BPA, the FDA’s position has been that it’s safe and suitable for food contact. With this announcement, the FDA admits that “on the basis of results from recent studies using novel approaches to test for subtle effects, both the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health and FDA have some concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children.”

To translate: There still isn’t conclusive evidence that BPA is harmful, but there are a number of question marks that need to be resolved through research – and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) was just awarded about 30 million dollars to pursue that research. In the meantime, the FDA has announced its interim position and the steps it is taking regarding BPA:

• FDA is taking reasonable steps to reduce human exposure to BPA in the food supply. These steps include:
  • supporting the industry’s actions to stop producing BPA-containing baby bottles and infant feeding cups for the U.S. market;
  • facilitating the development of alternatives to BPA for the linings of infant formula cans; and
  • supporting efforts to replace BPA or minimize BPA levels in other food can linings.

• FDA is supporting a shift to a more robust regulatory framework for oversight of BPA.
• FDA is seeking further public comment and external input on the science surrounding BPA.

— from FDA’s 1/10/10 report

We’re very pleased that the FDA has chosen to take this issue seriously – both by acknowledging that there are legitimate questions and by committing the resources and the money to begin to answer them. As always, we will carefully monitor the issue, provide our comments and perspective to the FDA, and keep our customers informed on any major developments.

What We’ve Been Doing About BPA

The FDA’s recommendations are consistent with the path that we at Whole Foods Market have taken over the past few years. Our position has been that there are enough questions about BPA that, when there are functional alternatives available, it makes sense to avoid the use of BPA.  Back in February of 2006, we were the first major retailer in the U.S. to ban baby bottles and child cups made from BPA-containing polycarbonate plastic. More recently, we’ve been working very closely with our canned food suppliers to help them transition away from the use of BPA in food can linings. The FDA’s recent recommendations validate the steps that we’ve already taken and will continue to advance. Here’s a quick overview of what we’ve done on the issue:

• We have worked with our suppliers to strongly encourage the transition to non-BPA materials where functional alternatives exist. For example, the majority of the refillable individual water bottles in our stores were once made from polycarbonate plastic. Because of our work to encourage the transition away from BPA, nearly all of those bottles are now made from other materials, and we are working with our buyers and suppliers to finalize the transition away from polycarbonate water bottles completely.
• Our Quality Standards Team actively follows academic research and regulatory developments regarding the endocrine activity of substances present in plastics, including BPA. We work with academic experts and alternative plastic suppliers to stay on the leading edge of this issue.
• Polycarbonate plastic is still used in certain bottles and in aluminum can linings in our stores; we are currently working with manufacturers to strongly encourage the development of packaging that uses alternative materials. We have asked our major manufacturers of canned goods to present us with their plans for transitioning away from BPA-containing materials.
• Frustratingly, there are very few effective BPA-free cans available on the market. A few manufacturers have produced BPA-free cans, but the supply is very limited and they are only effective for a narrow range of foods. BPA-based epoxy lining is the industry standard for the lining of canned foods, with very few exceptions. This lining material works very effectively to protect the integrity of food. We are actively working with experts in the field to find an alternative material that works just as well without the presence of BPA or any other substances of concern.
• The manufacturing of cans in the U.S. is dominated by a small number of very large companies. Whole Foods Market represents a very tiny slice of the overall canned good market, so our leverage is limited. Despite the uphill nature of this battle, we are working with a group of like-minded companies and socially responsible investors to continue to push for alternatives. The FDA’s new focus should help us in this effort.
• To date, we have done more than any other U.S. retailer to inform our customers and take action on the issue. When appropriate, we have stopped the sale of certain products and/or provided information to our customers about the products.

Complex issues of food safety are seldom simple, and there are almost always trade-offs. BPA epoxy resin is the best lining for cans, in terms of protecting food integrity, extending shelf life, and ensuring the safety the food inside, but as we’ve learned, it may not be as safe as the industry once believed. Our goal is to continue to push for food packaging materials that protect food and keep it safe, without the leaching of BPA or any other toxic or estrogenic materials. We hope the FDA’s new direction on this issue — both in recommending the minimal use of BPA and in committing to researching the questions — will give new energy and momentum to the food industry’s transition away from BPA.

For More Information:

Dept. of Health and Human Services BPA Safety Page

FDA’s BPA Update Page

Big news: We just announced that our 273 U.S. stores have been certified organic by CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers). Those of you who’ve been paying attention know that we’ve been a certified organic retailer since 2003 – a voluntary certification that’s not required by the USDA. So what’s the big deal now? Well, last November, the USDA told us that it was about to get much harder to be a certified retailer. Rather than walk away from certification altogether, we opted to go down the much more difficult road of getting each of our stores individually certified. The USDA was right: it was much harder. But we did what it took and made it happen. That’s the news.

Here’s a bit of context. When USDA’s National Organic Standards went into effect in 2002, they defined organic in great detail, down to the specific substances that could be used, and required that everyone who handles organic food – growers, ranchers, processors, etc. – be certified by a USDA-approved third party organic certifier. Everyone, that is, except retailers. Huh? Yes, the whole supply chain for organic products must be certified, with the tiny exceptions of retailers and restaurants. These exceptions were made because they thought it would have been prohibitively difficult and expensive for all the retailers that carried unprotected organic food to get certified (by “unprotected” I mean unpackaged, like produce, meat, bulk grocery, etc.). So the USDA told retailers that they still had to follow the rules, but they wouldn’t have to be certified. And we told the USDA something to the effect of “So you think it’s too hard for retailers to get certified? We’d like to respectfully prove you wrong.”

And we did. In 2003, Whole Food Market became the first national certified organic retailer, joining a few other small retailers that didn’t have national scope. Since we were certified as a “group,” our certifier inspected a representative sampling of our stores along with our overall company policies and systems for monitoring compliance. This is the same group process used for farm collectives where many small farms are grouping their product together. In November 2008, the USDA told retailers that they could no longer be certified as groups, and that each individual store would have to be inspected. While this was more expensive and labor intensive, we signed up all of our stores for inspection because we believe the integrity it brings the “organic” label is so important.

As part of the transition in the certifying process, we chose to work with California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) as our certifier. They have been certifying organic farms and producers since 1973 and act as both a certifying agent and a non-profit advocacy group for organics. The people we work with at CCOF are visionary leaders in organics, and they truly share our view that the organic label should be meaningful and used with integrity.

So, are you wondering exactly what these inspectors do in our stores? They are looking at our practices that involve unpackaged organic products. Obviously, you don’t need to do much to make sure a box of organic cereal stays organic. But we do have a lot to do when it comes to produce, bulk, meat, bakeries, cheese and even some salad bars. Here are just a few examples:

• The rules don’t allow “commingling” or touching between organic and non-organic foods. Throughout the stores, we go to great lengths to ensure that organic and conventional never touch.
• When sanitizing a surface that touches food – knives, cutting boards, displays, bins – we’re required to completely remove any sanitizer residue, and our team members keep written logs showing that they’ve removed cleaner and sanitizer from food contact surfaces.
• Whether it’s from a small local grower or a larger farm in another state, our organic produce has to come from certified organic growers. CCOF makes sure we have current certification documentation for any unpackaged products we’re handling and selling.



• Every team member who handles organic food needs to understand what the standard requires, so we’ve designed training programs to help. (These include a sing-along video about sanitation practices, and a video game called “The Organic Avengers,” with villains named “The Contaminator” and “The Commingler.” I am not joking; just ask any team member!) The certifier verifies that our teams are well-trained and have the knowledge they need to uphold the standard.

Again, I just want to reiterate that this program is not required by the USDA, and few other retailers go to the effort to become certified. Our stores are certified organic to give our customers more trust in the organic label. For us, it’s important for you to know that everyone who handles your organic food has been certified – instead of everyone but the retailer.

Why am I grinning ear-to-ear on this steamy hundred-degree day in the middle of Texas? The reason is this press release, which announces our commitment to the Non-GMO Project and represents the culmination of a very long and complicated undertaking. I’ve been working on this project – helping the company come up with a way to truly verify our efforts to avoid Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in our private label products – for just over five years, and it would be an understatement to say that I’m ecstatic about this announcement. I’d even go so far as to say that this moment makes me extremely optimistic about the future of our food supply and the persistence, energy and integrity of the natural and organic food visionaries who propel our industry forward.

What’s a GMO?

It’s simple: scientists combine the DNA of a plant with the DNA of something else and create a novel organism that has heretofore not existed in nature. The companies who make and sell the bioengineered crops will tell you all about the “exciting potential” of these crops to end hunger and create radical new super-nutritious foods. In reality, the GMO crops currently approved and marketed in the United States do one of two things: (1) make their own pesticides or (2) resist herbicides, so that farmers can spray an entire field with a strong chemical herbicide and kill everything but the GMO crop. Most of the U.S. corn, soy, canola and cotton is grown using one of these two technologies.

Why do we care?

Among Americans who are even aware that there are GMOs in the food supply (less than 50%, according to one study), prevailing beliefs about GMOs range from “They’ll save the universe” to “They’re utter toxic poison.” The topic is obviously very controversial, but what Whole Foods Market knows for certain is that our customers have told us very clearly that they’d like to avoid GMOs in their food. In fact, in a poll we conducted just last month, more than 80% of those we surveyed said they would seek out non-GMO products with clear labeling and would be willing to pay more for these products. Bioengineering of food is, for many, simply inconsistent with the very basic idea of natural food. We’re drawing a very important line in the sand and supporting shoppers looking to avoid GMOs.

What’s the Non-GMO Project?

Early on in this initiative, we realized that we couldn’t do this alone. Creating a standard and a program to verify products as avoiding GMOs would take an incredible level of technical expertise, and it would take the participation and commitment of other retailers, food makers, certifiers and growers in order to even get off the ground. About three years ago, we learned about a group of retailers who shared our concerns about GMOs and were already working on the issue, as we were. They had formed a non-profit organization called the Non-GMO Project. The tenacity and energy of these early supporters – Good Earth Natural Foods, The Natural Grocery Company, The Big Carrot Natural Food Market, and others – gave the Non-GMO Project its start, and we were happy to join the project as a founding leader, along with a number of other natural food companies. Learn more about the Project’s early history here. With the incredible leadership and technical expertise of our Board of Directors and Technical Advisory Board, we created a standard and a system for keeping GMOs as far from the natural food industry as possible.

How will this affect my life as a shopper?

You’ll start to see the “Non-GMO Project Verified” seal on products in our store starting this fall. We are going to enroll our house brands – 365 Every Day Value and Whole Foods Market – in the project. In fact, a few products are already verified. A number of other manufacturers, including Eden Foods, Nature’s Path Organic and Lundberg Family Farms, have also had products verified under the standard. You can see the full list on the Non-GMO Project website.

Since they were first introduced, GMO crops have expanded continually so that they now make up an astonishingly large portion of American agriculture, and we know that they’re just plain inconsistent with what we and the people who shop with us want. The Non-GMO Project’s success is critical to the continued availability of non-GMO products in the U.S., and we hope you’ll join us in showing your support.

Consider signing up for the Project’s Consumer Pledge and becoming a fan on Facebook to stay up-to-date. To other retailers and food makers reading this, visit the site to learn how you can support the Non-GMO Project as well. Our success depends on the support of retailers, food makers, growers, shoppers and everyone with an interest in keeping natural food natural. Join us!