What is the Whole Trade Guarantee Program?

If you have shopped at the Whole Foods Market, you may have noticed the Whole Trade Guarantee seal on various items throughout the stores. Basically, that label is an extension of the store’s key principles. So anytime an item has the Whole Trade Guarantee label on, it indicates:

•           the product reaches the store’s strict product Quality          Standards
•           supply more money to producers
•          ensure better wages and working conditions for workers
•          care for the environment
•           donate 1% of sales to Whole Planet Foundation

Meeting Strict Quality Standards

The workers taste, inspect, prod and poke for the products’ quality. All products are subjected to reaching the standards, such as no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors and sweeteners, and no hydrogenated fats.

Supply More Money to Producers

Fair trade puts together more sustainable, healthy economies in developing countries. A finest price paid to producers allows:

-          Offer access into and stability within the global marketplace

-          Be an investment in their families and communities

-          Put money back into their companies

-          Allow them to invest in training and education for workers

-          Maintain a better, continual quality of life

Ensure Better Wages and Working Conditions

Whole Trade producers assure to provide better wages and safer conditions for all their workers in the store.

Moreover, community support programs let Whole Trade to benefit the workers and their families beyond the farm gate or the door of the manufacturing facility, and beyond a paycheck. The “social premium”, which Whole Foods Market pays to producers for Whole Trade products, encourages social-improvement projects in the worker communities, including:

-          Schools and daycare for worker families

-          Hospital equipment

-          Low-interest home-improvement loans

-          Bicycles to help kids get to school
-  Water and electricity access

Care for the Environment

The Whole Trade Guarantee encourages strong needs toward producers to use sound environmental practices that encourage biodiversity and healthy soils. Simply put, it promotes a sustainable environment for everyone. While some products are organic, others respect our Earth using a variety of conservation methods or respectful wild harvesting. Once passing the requirements and getting satisfying results, third-party certifiers are recruited to examine environmental practices and working condition on site and to confirm specific criteria to be met.

Donation made to Whole Planet Foundation

Not only the industry has the World’s best products, but it also has the best purpose dedicated to the public. For every product sold, 1% of the sale is donated to Whole Planet Foundation to help fund poverty improvement through micro-credit (the lending of small amounts of money at low interest to new businesses) in the US and abroad.

Therefore, next time you’re in the store, look for the Whole Trade Guarantee seal on products and think about how when you are purchasing Whole Trade products, you are helping Whole Planet Foundation, too!

“Going Bananas” with EARTH University

Whole Trade Program

EARTH (Escuela de Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda) University

EARTH (Escuela de Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda) is a non-profit, international university dedicated to the sustainable development of the tropics through education and research. EARTH exclusively recruits students from poor, rural communities around the tropics and provides many students with full scholarships so they can attend. When EARTH's founders obtained the land to build the university campus in the late 1980's, the property included a commercial banana farm, which EARTH Decided to keep active as an outdoor laboratory and as a business where they practice the commercial approach to agriculture that they teach. Since then, EARTH's faculty, staff and students have been working to reduce the environmental impact of the farm by protecting biodiversity and radically reducing the amount of chemicals used in typical banana production. EARTH's farm is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and they set off far beyond the requirements of the certification. Some of the environmental techniques developed at EARTH in the early days have become standardized in its industry.

Whole Trade Program with Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market, world’s largest natural and organic foods supermarket, is in trade with EARTH University’s bananas from Costa Rica. The profits from bananas go directly to support education, entrepreneurship, and sustainable agriculture in the developing world.

“EARTH University has taken a leadership role in the banana industry through its environmentally-friendly production methods,” says Michael Besancon, Southern Pacific Regional President for Whole Foods Market. “After visiting the EARTH University campus at the edge of the Costa Rican rainforest, it was clear the university’s mission and curriculum mirrors Whole Foods Market’s commitment to demonstrating workable ecological solutions for the world.” 

EARTH University has built up a high-quality, low-impact and socially-responsible banana farm, which is a model for the banana industry worldwide. The university’s innovative curriculum focuses on creative, economically possible uses for the natural resources of the humid tropics. 

The sustainable and ethical cultivation and packing process includes the following: elimination of herbicides, maintanence of fair treatment and protection of banana plantation workers and planting native trees along rivers to reduce erosion and advances biodiversity.

Earth University and Whole Foods/Company info clip

This video displays a basic information on the organization of EARTH’s farm and its connection between Whole Foods Market.  

Earth University Foundation: Banana Production clip

This particular video solely shows the structure of EARTH University’s banana production, in detail. 

How are EARTH bananas different?

The taste of EARTH banana are less rough and there is more of a depth in sweetness with. In fact, “The EARTH banana has exceptional culinary quality due to the cultural farming practices of the university and growing conditions of the humid tropics in Costa Rica".

"These bananas are full or round in shape because the fruit is very mature at harvest,” says Edmund LaMacchia, National Vice President of Procurement – Perishables for Whole Foods Market. “Consequently EARTH bananas are creamy and moist in texture with a rich and complex flavor.”

For more information visit EARTH University's website

Brief Introductory and history of Whole Foods Market

From the fairly humble beginning of being a one-store entrepreneur living on the third floor and taking baths in the dishwasher, John Mackey has seen his 1978 Safer Way grocery store grow into an $8 billion a year corporation.  As of September 2008, Whole Foods had 264 stores in the United States, six in Canada, and five in the United Kingdom.

The Whole Foods new headquarters building is located above its 80,000 square foot flagship store in Austin, Texas.  Through a long series of acquisitions, John Mackey has created a niche retailer which enjoys lofty profits in a very price competitive industry that is typically characterized by accordingly low profit margins.  With projected 2009 sales of more than $8 billion, and a goal of $12 billion by 2010, Whole Foods currently has 275 stores, and 50,000 plus team members.

Two years after opening his SaferWay store, John Mackey merged with Clarksville Natural Grocery in Austin, Texas.  This resulted in the opening of the original Whole foods Market in 1980.  In 1984, Whole Foods expanded out of Austin into Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, and one store in California. This expansion was accomplished in significant part through many acquisitions of other natural food chains throughout its three decade history.

In 2004, Whole Foods entered the United Kingdom by acquiring an existing chain of seven natural food stores.  In 2007, they opened an 80,000 square foot, three level store in West London.  Initially they planned for up to forty more stores in that country. In fiscal year 2008, sales in the U.K. accounted for approximately three percent of total sales. 

The company is heavily involved in environmental issues and community involvement. They donate at least five percent of their net profits yearly to charitable causes.  Whole Foods made the U. S Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the “Top 25 Green Power Partners” with such efforts as: eliminating plastic, working to ensure the humane treatment of animals, protection of the fishing industry, and offsetting its energy costs through wind power credits.