How Whole Foods Resembles a Kosher Kitchen
By Elissa Strauss August 20, 2009
Last month Whole Foods announced that it has become the country’s first nationally certified organic grocer. In order to receive this seal, the chain implemented a series of rules to avoid any commingling of conventional and organic unwrapped products. To anyone who has ever tried to separate milk and meat, these are rules that seem a bit familiar.
Jill Richardson, who took a job there for her recent piece on Alternet, explains some of the new more arduous rules: “I, following the rules closely, occasionally had to decline customers’ requests to slice their non-organic bread in our bread-slicing machine, as it was designated for organic use only. Likewise, certain spoons and pitchers were reserved exclusively for organics, which we had to wash in separate sinks from the dishes used for conventional food.”
It’s not the only way the organic industry has come to resemble the kosher industry. In order to get its organic certification, Whole Foods had to go through the California Certified Organic Farmers — an independent non-profit agency that provides growers and retailers with their imprimatur, for a price. And just like with kosher products, the consumer often ends up covering the costs of such oversight.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
