AUSTIN, Texas (March 13, 2024) – Whole Foods Market CEO Jason Buechel recently moderated a panel in the SXSW Conference 2024, a festival that celebrates the convergence of tech, film and television, music, education and culture. Buechel was joined by industry leaders, Arturo Condo, President of EARTH University, and Alison Czeczuga, Director of Social Impact and Sustainability at Gaia Herbs, to address critical questions in the food and agriculture industries, including how sustainable production can positively impact farmers and their communities.
The session, “Seeds of Change: Impactful and Climate-Friendly Food,” delved into the future of food while exploring how climate-smart strategies like organic farming and regenerative agriculture can help ensure that the world can produce food for generations to come.
“At Whole Foods Market, we’re passionate about food. Regenerative agriculture is at the top of the list,” said Buechel. “We want to ensure that the land and communities that we source in are improved, not degraded or depleted.”
In 2021, Whole Foods Market launched Sourced for Good, an evolution of the company’s Whole Trade Guarantee program that began in 2007. Sourced for Good supports workers, communities and the environment where Whole Foods Market products are sourced. To wear the Sourced for Good seal, products must be of superior quality and represent the company’s sourcing standards. As part of the program, Whole Foods Market collaborates with farmers, suppliers and international third-party certifiers to help provide things like improved wages, health care, student scholarships and more.
“EARTH University was founded on the premise that, given the opportunity and the right kind of educational experience, promising young people from developing regions become ethical leaders and agents of social and environmental change,” said Condo, while discussing how EARTH University student scholarships are in part funded by the Whole Foods Market Sourced for Good program.
Czeczuga expanded on the social pillar of Gaia Herb’s Regenerative Organic Certification that focuses on the state of farmworkers in the U.S., “our four priorities of the farmworker program are health and wellness advocacy, compensation and benefits, travel to and from Mexico, and dignified farmworker housing.”
Listen to the full panel here: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2024/events/PP140014
About Whole Foods Market
Founded in 1980, Austin-based Whole Foods Market is the world’s leading natural and organic foods retailer and the first certified organic national grocer in the United States. Part of Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores, Whole Foods Market serves customers in more than 530 stores across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. To learn more about Whole Foods Market, please visit https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/.
Contact media@wholefoods.com
