Quality Foods from Sources You Can Trust
At Whole Foods Market® we take pride in informing our customers about our products so that they can make conscious buying choices. Due to a marked increase in demand for high-quality organic products, the sourcing of many organic products has gone global. We are very open about where our products come from and print the country of origin directly on the package.
Rest assured we go to great lengths to ensure to the extent possible 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. More detailed information about some of these processes follows.
"Quality" is not just a concept for us, it is a core value of our company.
Whole Foods Market continues to be a leader in promoting and selling natural and organic foods.
- We have done more in our history as a company to promote and build organics than any other retailer.
- We were the first national certified organic retailer under the USDA's organic standards, a voluntary certification which we continue to pursue as an additional assurance for organic integrity.
- Retailers are not required to be certified, and very few are, yet we invite a third party auditor into our stores to verify that we purchase, handle and sell organic food in compliance with the standards. Read more about this program here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/values/organic.php
- Further Detail: Learn more about Whole Foods Market's commitment to the pursuit of quality in the natural and organic products we carry. http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/index.php
We go to great lengths to secure the safest, highest-quality food.
Multiple layers of auditing and oversight are provided to assure the quality, safety and legality of our products.
- Our team of buyers and auditors personally visit farms and facilities where private label products are sourced. Every Whole Foods Market Private Label vendor is subject to strict quality assurance audits on site, wherever they are located.
- All organic products are audited and certified by a USDA-accredited certifying agent.
- We have highly trained internal experts who visit our suppliers and perform quality evaluations. We also use some of the most highly credentialed and experienced audit companies in the world to do independent inspections and thoroughly evaluate food safety at the supplier manufacturing plants.
- Quality Assurance International (QAI), is an example of an independent certifier of Organic products. When you see their seal on our packages it means they have confirmed we sourced the product from a certified organic operation.
When creating our Private Label products, we use a multiple testing safeguard approach.
- All of our suppliers are asked to produce specifications for their products and assure compliance with those specifications through testing.
- We require they use highly credentialed laboratories who are specialists in their fields. We establish elaborate product profiles and risk potential testing methodologies for food testing. For example, a frozen meal is at a higher risk than sea salt due to the number of ingredients required to make the product. Different levels of risks results in different testing regimens.
- When we develop testing profiles we also take into consideration country of origin. For instance, our testing profiles for frozen vegetables produced in China were developed in conjunction with a world class testing laboratory, and include specific tests to assess a broad spectrum of potential environmental contaminants. We periodically test our products using these profiles, as do our vendors, to ensure compliance to regulatory, safety and quality standards.
- If specifications are not met, we have corrective action systems we use that can get to the root of the problem and we work together with our suppliers to fix any issues uncovered.
Following the audit process, we carefully examine results and grade our Private Label suppliers.
- We grade our suppliers on their quality performance. We look at customer complaints, testing results and inspection results and actually write a scorecard for every supplier. Their grades determine whether we need to increase our level of supervision with the supplier and require that they conduct additional inspections or testing on their products.
We have a standard process in place anytime safety comes into question in the grocery industry.
- For example, in the spring of 2007, thousands of pets fell ill and 8,000 died in the US alone due to melamine contamination.
- Whole Foods Market immediately took extensive precautions to assure that our pet products were safe and to our knowledge no pets were injured as a result of eating our private label pet food.
- We went much further and looked closely at our meat supply chain because the melamine that caused the problems in pet food was also found in animal feed ingredients.
Our standards are the strongest and continuously improving.
In an effort to continually improve processes, we have a senior leadership council dedicated to keeping current on the latest quality assurance developments and challenges.
- Whole Foods Market takes quality very seriously. We have regular meetings with senior executives that represent our Quality Assurance, Legal, Operations and Procurement teams to discuss and systematically solve the quality challenges we face. Projects are assigned and resources are allocated for quality improvement based on the findings of the Council.
- One recent innovation is our Supply Chain Code of Practice (SCCOP). SCCOP is an exclusive food safety code that embodies our desire to work with our suppliers to assure the safety of our products and full transparency in our supply chain.
We don't stop at "required," we aim higher.
In keeping with our commitment to quality, we instituted Country of Origin (COO) policies before they were required by the government.
- Regulations have been passed and will be implemented on Sept 30, 2008, which will impact labeling requirements for certain products and will give our customers even more transparency in terms of where products come from. We take a progressive approach on "Country of Origin Labeling." We are ahead of the regulations and many of our products have already been labeled to identify country of origin because our customers expect that from us.
No matter where a product originates, all organic products that we carry must meet strict USDA organic certification, as well as our own Quality Standards.
- A USDA approved certifying agent works with the producer on both growing and manufacturing processes to insure the organic integrity of their product.
- Quality Assurance International (QAI) works on our behalf with that certifier to make sure that all of their procedures are in accordance with the USDA standard.
- No matter where a product is grown the same USDA standard is used to evaluate suppliers. Organic standards in China are no different than they are in Brazil, Turkey, Thailand or anywhere else.
- Any product that is going to be sold as organic in the U.S. must be audited by a USDA-accredited certifier. For example, the Chinese government does not certify U.S.-bound organic product in China. That certification is done by USDA-accredited certifiers in China who are themselves reviewed, approved and accredited directly by the USDA.
We only discriminate when it comes to quality and taste, not country of origin.
Whole Foods Market continues to buy from China because we believe in supporting farmers that provide high quality products.
- Our strategy is not to run away from our Chinese suppliers, but to take a stand and get closer to our suppliers. We will continue to improve on the audit and testing procedures that are already in place.
- Organic farming has a long history in China.
- Our strategy is to build long term partnerships with our Chinese suppliers.
- We are confident in the quality and integrity of our products from all countries, including China.
As the world population grows, we are going to be forced to look at our supply chains and develop emerging organic suppliers all over the world.
- The steps we are taking now will assure the long term quality of our supply as we look beyond the United States for organic food solutions.
If you have further questions about our products and buying protocols feel free to connect with our private label team at privatelabel.customerservice@wholefoods.com.
