From Whole Foods Market website.
This post is contributed by Edmund LaMacchia, Global Vice President of Perishable Purchasing and primary executive sponsor of the Responsibly Grown program at Whole Foods Market.
At Whole Foods Market, we’ve dedicated our business to providing better, more transparent choices for shoppers, which is one of the reasons why we launched our Responsibly Grown program for fresh produce and flowers. In addition to addressing critical agricultural issues, such as farmworker welfare, soil health, pest management, energy use, water conservation, waste and more, Responsibly Grown is designed to provide more information about how our products were grown so that you, our customers, can make more confident choices for you and your families.
We launched Responsibly Grown with the goal of creating a dynamic program that we would continuously evolve with our suppliers to address important agriculture issues affecting human health and the environment. Since we launched the programs in our stores, we’ve had a lot of productive dialogue with all of our stakeholders on how we can continue to enhance the program as we move it forward. As part of our dedication to ongoing improvement, we’re pleased to share a few enhancements we’ll be making to strengthen the program over the next year:
- We will simplify how the program appears in stores. Responsibly Grown was designed to engage with customers about how their products were grown with a simple, at-a-glance rating. Based on feedback we’ve received as the program rolled out, we recognize the need to simplify how we communicate its value to our customers. To that effect: all Good, Better and Best Responsibly Grown rating logos will be removed. A single Responsibly Grown rating will be the new standard by March 31, of this year.
- As we transition to one Responsibly Grown rating in stores, we will also be evolving the requirements, including updates to our prohibited pesticide list. These updates are in keeping with our initial announcement on September 2013, that our pesticide policy “will be updated as needed to ensure continuous improvement in pesticide risk reduction.” We are already discussing these enhancements with suppliers, which will go into effect early next calendar year.
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