It’s Whole Trade Month, which means time to celebrate the Whole Trade Guarantee and the hard-working folks who produce these outstanding products. By no coincidence, Whole Trade Month falls around Valentine’s Day, when we often think about chocolate and roses, two of our staple Whole Trade products. But the Whole Trade Guarantee encompasses so much more. From bananas to coffee to body care, we sources thousands of items from producers who share our commitment to quality, the environment and healthy working conditions. Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to Valentine’s Day and roses, it’s hard to think of one without the other! We’ve been thinking about them a LOT around here…not just how beautiful they are, but more importantly what our Whole Trade Guarantee™ roses give back to the communities where they are grown.

Grown in the Ecuadorian Andes by a group of Fair Trade certified farms, these “blooms with benefits” help to cultivate better working conditions and equitable wages for the farms’ workers. For each case of Whole Trade roses purchased by Whole Foods Market, an additional percentage is paid directly to worker groups from each farm who collectively decide how to use the money. Some development projects have included education, training, scholarships, health care and housing.

Growing conditions for roses can be finicky at best, and Ecuador has come to be one of the more popular growing environments due to its 10,000 feet elevation, proximity to the sun and its cool nights. The flower industry started there around 20 years ago and currently gives direct employment to more than 70,000 people, with indirect employment going to another 210,000 people. While on average the entire country holds an unemployment rate of 8%, there is very little unemployment in the regions where the flowers business has developed. Read the rest of this entry »

As you do your shopping this holiday season, you’ve probably noticed the beautiful bouquets of holiday flowers in your local Whole Foods Market store. But a quick look doesn’t give you the whole story. This season, we’ve worked with our growers to bring you three Whole Trade™ Guarantee holiday floral bouquets.*

In addition to their outstanding beauty, these Whole Trade bouquets do more than dress up your home or table. Meet Ana, one of the workers on a flower farm that supplies us with these beautiful flowers. Ana has been working for the farm for seven years. She works in production at the farm, cutting and preparing the flowers for their trip to our stores in bouquets or bunches. Ana and her family live in Facatativa, Colombia. They have benefited from the farm’s foundation, which is providing her son with an education. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know October is Fair Trade Month? We’re celebrating with Fairhills Bus Stop Red and Bus Stop White. Both of these wines are products of one of the world’s largest Fair Trade projects, a joint venture between exporter, Origin Wine, Mendoza Vineyards in Argentina and Du Toitskloof Winery in South Africa. Over 1,400 farm employees and their families benefit from this unique social development project.

The Fairhills Bus Stop Red is full-bodied with aromas of berry fruit and chocolate and hints of plum on the lingering palate. It goes great with fall and winter dishes like hearty soups and stews, grilled meats like pork loin and lamb chops or pastas in red sauce. You don’t have to take our word for it’s great taste – The Beverage Institute’s World Wine Championships awarded it the Gold Medal. And what makes this wine taste even better? Proceeds are dedicated to purchasing a school bus for the children of the over 800 farm employees and communities of San Martin, Lavalle and Medrano in Mendoza, Argentina.

If you’re in the mood for something a little on the lighter side, try the Fairhills Bus Stop White. It has a creamy acidity on the palate with flavors of apricot and melon and aromas of lemon grass on the nose with a hint of spice. You can enjoy it with shellfish, grilled trout and vegetables, poached salmon or chicken dishes. This one brought home the Silver Medal in the World Wine Championships. Plus it will be so much more enjoyable knowing that proceeds from this wine are dedicated to purchasing a small bus to transport tourists from the city to the communities.

So raise a glass to Fair Trade this month and know that you have impacted the lives of over 1400 farm employees and their families. Salud! Cheers!

Picture this: it’s a hot August afternoon. You just ran a few miles and you are in need of some replenishment. You swing by your friendly, neighborhood Whole Foods Market to re-fuel. In front of the beverage cooler, you pause for a moment to consider the myriad items we carry. Like many of our customers, you might reach for one of our familiar brands that you know and trust – Naked Juice.

And that is a good choice. Naked Juice has taken a lead in the food industry in terms of scrutinizing their carbon footprint. They are making some cool choices to improve the sustainability of their production facility, their juice bottles and even the tasty stuff inside the bottles. Here’s how.

Their first big move will actually be that: a relocation into a brand new LEED certified production facility. This means they have met some pretty stringent criteria for water and energy efficiency, use of recycled building materials and waste reduction. Whole Foods Market has also gone through this certification with some of our new stores and it’s quite an accomplishment! Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! Hopefully, many of you were the recipients of your favorite treats today – quite possibly flowers! If you did get flowers and if they have the Whole Trade Guarantee™ seal on them, you can know that they helped support communities and families (and moms!) where they were produced. Here is the story of one mom behind the flowers.

Maria lives in Juan Pablo Sesundo, Colombia and works on a farm producing Whole Trade Guarantee flowers. She has been with the farm for 11 years (and working in the flower industry for 22 years). Maria works the flower beds in the greenhouse, maintains the crop and harvests the flowers. “Every day I come to work with a positive attitude filled with love that makes me want to do my best. Our farm is filled with people who love their job and are very devoted to producing the best and most beautiful flowers that we can,” says Maria.

Read the rest of this entry »

February is Whole Foods Market’s Whole Trade™ Month and we are proud to be the first to launch in the US of A Fairhills Winery’s Fair-Trade Certified and Whole Trade Guarantee wines!

Fairhills Tierstel Daycare. 90% of the personnel were employed in the vineyards on all the individual farms where they stay. The daycare opened in 2006. In total, 85 children attend the specific daycare.

These wines, apart from being extremely tasty and yummy, also have the great distinction of directly benefiting over 1300 winery workers, vineyard workers, smaller farmers and their families with fair wages and fair prices for their crops. The Fairhills project covers three of the major growing regions in the wine world: South Africa, Argentina and Chile. Two continents, two great goals: to make great wine, and to improve the living and social conditions of all who participate in making the wine great! Read the rest of this entry »

Carol Medeiros joined Whole Foods Market in 2001 at our Cherry Creek store in Denver and has been working on our produce and floral team ever since.

You may remember Karen’s Whole Trade roses post from last summer, sharing the story of the Ecuadorian Fair Trade certified flower farms that supply our Whole Trade Guarantee roses. Well, with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, what better time to share an update on Whole Trade flowers with you?

I was one of the Team Members to visit the Ecuadorian farms. I look back on these trips & consider myself lucky to have been a part of them – such a beautiful country, incredible product, wonderful people and inspiring stories. Read the rest of this entry »

Community Relations Team Leader Shonelle Bellon from our Santa Cruz store shares her thoughts on Whole Trade Guarantee™ Month.

February is Whole Trade Guarantee Month! (Enter to win Whole Trade flowers for a year!) During the season of romance, we are also celebrating fair wages, environmental sustainability and philanthropy throughout the world. When you’re shopping for Valentine’s Day gifts, I recommend browsing our Whole Trade Guarantee™ beautiful roses and decadent chocolates (Divine Chocolate, Equal Exchange and Theo Chocolate, just to name a few brands).

Beyond romantic treats, I shop for Whole Trade teas, coffees, body care and grocery products throughout the store. Here are a few of my very favorite items: Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to our Whole Trade Guarantee program, I get to work with a ton of great vendors who are using their businesses in order to change people’s lives. Every day I hear stories that are truly inspiring, and this blog is a place where I get to share it all with you.

As you may remember, The Whole Trade Guarantee is a buying program that brings together a strict set of criteria for products from developing countries. This program guarantees exceptional product quality, more money for producers, better wages and working conditions for workers, sound environmental production practices and the support of poverty eradication through a donation of one percent of product sales to our Whole Planet Foundation.

Read the rest of this entry »