Gotham Greens receives "Best" rating from Whole Foods

Gotham Greens recently announced that it has received a “Best” rating from Whole Foods Market’s Responsibly Grown Rating System.

 

The tiered produce rating system rewards farmers who work hard to protect human health and the environment, while providing consumers with an at-a-glance rating for sustainable farming practices. The program seeks to bring transparency to farming practices rating growers as “Good,” “Better” and “Best” while taking into account everything from pest management and water conservancy to farm worker welfare. The result is an easy-to-understand rating allowing shoppers to make more informed choices about how their food is grown.

 

Gotham Greens’ “Best” rating is a direct result of the company’s mission to advance sustainable urban agriculture and commitment to responsible growing practices. The company’s state of the art greenhouse facilities use 10 times less water and 20 times less land than conventional agriculture while eliminating the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizer runoff.

 

“There are many ways to farm responsibly and sustainably and our approach is tailored to our unique geographical locations,” says Viraj Puri, co-founder of Gotham Greens. “This rating is a testament and validation of our company’s pledge to responsible growing practices. We don’t just blindly talk about being ‘local’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘natural’. While our business is about those things, we care about what those things stand for: flavor and nutrition, preserving water and soil resources, biodiversity, reducing harmful chemical use in food production, fair treatment of workers, and spending our dollars closer to home.”

 

In 2014 Gotham Greens and Whole Foods Market partnered to build the world’s first commercial-scale greenhouse integrated into a retail store located in Brooklyn, New York. In April 2014 Gotham Greens was recipient of Whole Foods Market’s Annual Supplier Award in the produce category. Gotham Greens recently announced its expansion to Chicago, Illinois.