The Whole Trade™ Program

Each Whole Trade Item Meets Our High Quality Standards

At Whole Foods Market we are known for being passionate about great tasting food. Whole Trade products are the highest quality items in their category.

Naturally, just like everything in our stores, each Whole Trade product must meet the strict Quality Standards that guide us every day in our decisions about which products to offer our customers.
Learn more about our Quality Standards.

Our Whole Trade Program Provides More Money to Producers

With the market¹s inevitable price and production fluctuations, paying producers a better price for their product covers their costs and more. It makes sure that they can always afford to create, harvest or grow their product so that they do not have to abandon their work or jeopardize the wellbeing of their family to make ends meet.

Paying producers a premium price for their products:

Is an investment in producers and their communities
Puts money back into their operation
Enables them to invest in training and education for workers
Ensures more take home pay to help support a better life

Whole Trade Fosters a System that Ensures Better Wages and Working Conditions

The Whole Trade program gives low-income producers entry into and stability within the global marketplace by ensuring better wages and safer working conditions for workers. It supports equitable systems of trade that are an investment in both farms and communities.

With the premium earned on cocoa sales, a Dominican Republic producer reinvested in the community by contributing to local road maintenance, supporting construction and repair of schools and providing funds to a local health care clinic to help it exceed basic minimum conditions.

Whole Trade Products are Made In a Way that Promotes a Sustainable Environment

Whole Foods Market seeks out and promotes foods that are grown using sound environmental practices that encourage biodiversity and healthy soils. In addition to including some products that are grown organically, the Whole Trade program includes products that respect the Earth without formal organic certification.

These products could be sourced in two ways. Some come from farms that use integrated pest management systems, emphasizing alternatives to chemical use. They also practice soil and water conservation through composting and reforestation. Other products are respectfully harvested from land or water areas that provide shelter and habitat for migratory birds and other species.

Working to End Poverty in the Developing World

For each Whole Trade product sold, one percent of the retail sale will go to the Whole Planet Foundation. The mission of this foundation is to create economic partnerships with the poor in those developing-world communities that supply our stores with products.

Through innovative assistance for entrepreneurship — including direct micro-credit loans and tangible support for other community projects — the Whole Planet Foundation seeks to create prosperity in emerging economies.
Learn more

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Our Whole Trade™ Guarantee

A Commitment to Ethical Trade, the Environment and Quality Products.

At Whole Foods Market, we believe we have a responsibility toward all people involved in our business- shoppers, shareholders, Team Members and suppliers. In a shrinking global marketplace we have been looking for a way to expand this social responsibility to producer communities in developing countries, where we source some of our products.

The result is the Whole Trade program, a logical extension of our current values which promote quality in everything we do, from products and business practices to caring for our Team Members, communities and the environment.

The products in this program must meet specific criteria that demand quality in four areas of responsibility:

Meets our high Quality Standards
Provides more money to producers
Ensures better wages and working conditions for workers
Cares for the environment

Choosing Whole Trade products gives Whole Foods Market shoppers the opportunity to use their buying power to ensure a healthy working environment for producers in developing countries. And, with each purchase of those products, one percent of the retail price goes to the Whole Planet Foundation, which is creating real results in the fight against poverty.