USA: 273 Whole Foods stores certified organic

Whole Foods Market has announced that each of its 273 stores in the USA has earned organic certification. The organic certifier CCOF confirmed the retailer met the stricter new rules for organic certification which came into effect last year. In 2003, Whole Foods was the first chain in the USA to earn group certification status. In that year, a third-party certifier inspected a certain number of stores, along with the overall company and monitoring systems, while in 2008 the USDA declared that each store had to be inspected, Greenbiz reports.
 

According to Joe Dickson, Whole Foods’ quality standards coordinator, the company believed that their customers benefited from having everyone who handled their organic food certified. In their stores, every department that handled organic food was certified - produce, meat, bulk, cheese, and stores with organic salad bars were certified. Individual stores verify the organic status of products, maintain an audit trail, prevent organic products from cross-contamination, and train employees in proper practices as required by the certification. 
 

Greenbiz