Independently owned, organic grocery store. Our Annex serves prepared foods and offers a selection of wine and beer. Our florists are here to help you with fresh local cuts and dried bouquets.
Have you ever seen a B logo on a product and wondered what it means? B-Corporations have been put through a rigorous set of social and environmental standards to ensure that they positively impact workers, communities, customers, and our planet. This March, we’re talking about what it means to be a B-Corp, and providing education on how you as a shopper can make a difference with your dollars. Stay tuned! 🌎
If you’re like many shoppers, you want to know how the food you buy affects people and the planet, including how it was grown, harvested and produced. You seek out greater transparency from stores like ours, as well as from your favorite brands and the companies who produce your food.
We, too, believe you have a right to know if what you’re buying aligns with your values! That’s where third party certifications play a big role. When you see the little labels by independent third-party certifiers on your food, you know that product underwent a rigorous evaluation to ensure it met a set of strict standards.
To highlight the positive impacts these labels make, this January we’re celebrating Think Big, Shop Little Labels all month – honoring Fairtrade America, Marine Stewardship Council and the Non-GMO Project! By looking for the Non-GMO Project, Fairtrade America and Marine Stewardship Council labels, you can shop sustainably throughout our store! Read on to learn how they are driving big, meaningful change in our food system!
What is Non-GMO Project Verified?
GMOs (or genetically modified organisms) are living organisms whose genetic material has been manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering, creating combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and/or virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.
Non-GMO Project verification means that a product is compliant with the Non-GMO Project Standard, the most rigorous third-party standard for GMO avoidance, which includes stringent provisions for ingredient testing and traceability and the most up-to-date definitions around new GMO techniques.
What is Fairtrade America?
Every day, we enjoy products planted, grown, harvested and transported by farmers and workers around the world. These farmers and workers often do not earn enough to have a decent living — that is, to eat nutritious food, send their kids to school, have adequate shelter and weather a crisis. Many live on less than $2 per day.
The Fairtrade Mark works towards rebalancing trade. By choosing Fairtrade, you are choosing to prioritize the farmers and workers behind our everyday purchases. You are choosing products that are certified to meet the rigorous standards developed in partnership with producers.
What is MSC Certified?
The MSC blue fish label is an ecolabel that can be found on seafood products from fresh, canned, and frozen seafood to omega-3 supplements and even pet food. It can also be found alongside seafood items on menus. The blue fish helps shoppers and diners identify seafood that is wild-caught and that has been independently verified for environmental sustainability, because a healthy ocean is vital for people and the planet. By purchasing products with the MSC blue fish label, you are directly supporting well-managed fisheries that have been assessed by a third-party on its impacts on wild fish populations and the ecosystems they’re part of.
When you see the MSC blue fish label on packaging, you can feel good knowing you are supporting continuous changes on the water to help protect the ocean for the future. 95% of MSC certified fisheries make improvements so they continue to meet the high bar of the MSC Fisheries Standard.
Why do we need such labels on food anyway?
“Natural” food and “fair” food are big business these days and greenwashing has become a serious problem. By making unverified or uncertified claims about how their food is grown, caught, or processed (“self-made” marketing claims), some unscrupulous companies capitalize on shoppers’ desire for high-quality food because it supports people and the planet. In response, there is a sea of different labels popping up with claims that sound really good, but have little backing them up.
How does an informed shopper know what label is supported and which are empty marketing words? Choosing well-recognized, independent, third-party certification labels on products is the best place to start. Labels like the Fairtrade Mark, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Certified, and Non-GMO Project Verified represent rigorous standards with requirements that must be followed in order to receive the label. This may actually require laboratory testing and supply chain accountability that allows for “identity preservation.”
Fairtrade America, Marine Stewardship Council, and the Non-GMO Project are all nonprofit organizations driven by their collective mission to change how food is harvested or made in order to better serve people and the planet. Fairtrade has been operating internationally since 1989, MSC’s sustainable fishing standard has been in effect since 1998, and Non-GMO Project has been verifying products since 2010. The nonprofits publish their standards on their websites to give shoppers full transparency. Brands both large and small showcase this compliance by including the Fairtrade, MSC, or Non-GMO Project labels on their packaging. This further gives shoppers assurance that it’s not a fad but a sustainability tool used by brands to have a true, positive impact.
What you can do Think big and shop the labels! Our store will be highlighting products that are Fairtrade, MSC Certified and Non-GMO Project Verified throughout January. Support brands working towards a more sustainable future, and try something new.
Want to learn more?
Follow the Butterfly with the Non-GMO Project. Sign up for their newsletters and like them on social
media @NonGMOProject.
Get the scoop on Fairtrade. Sign up to receive Fairtrade America’s newsletter and follow them on
social media @FairtradeMarkUS.
Learn how your choices at the grocery store can make a big difference for the health of our ocean
at MSC.org. Get to know the people behind the label that make sustainable seafood possible at @MSCbluefish.
It’s all about us!
The Richmond Standard is talking about The Natural Grocery Company, our origins and evolution. Check out the article.
Since 2003, Hummingbird Wholesale has managed a successful container reuse program. Co-owner Charlie Tilt wanted to use an alternative system to recycling that would save more energy and be gentler on the environment.
When you shop our stores you will notice that we collect a deposit for Hummingbird products that are in jars. When you return the clean container to us you get your deposit back and we return them to Hummingbird to be sanitized and used again. Learn more about their program and the savings it is realizing for the company while helping reduce waste.
We are celebrating Women’s History Month by calling attention to some of our local vendors that are women owned!
Edison Grainery is a women owned, family operated business in Benicia, CA.
Edison Grainery
Edison specializes in the highest quality of organic ingredients in their top 9 allergen free facility. Every lot of every ingredient is special to them. Edison starts with vetted farmers who met their food safety and good manufacturing practices. Upon receiving an inbound, a third-party laboratory submission is sent to test for pathogens, yeast, mold, gluten (All results aka Certificates of Analysis (CoA) are posted online at Edison Grainery for full customer transparency and confidence). Once given the green light by their food safety officers, they run the lot through their state of the art cleaning line (optical laser color sorter, rare earth magnet, metal detection, sifter) and then into production.
Lyndsy Barnes O’Malley, Edison Grainery Owner: “We’ve had the pleasure of working with The Natural Grocery Company for many years and are so grateful for the community and support”.
Likewise Lyndsy, The Natural Grocery Company appreciates Edison Grainery!
We’ve put together raffle baskets that feature this great women owned business along with several others. Stop by the Berkeley or El Cerrito Stores to enter.
Meet Veritable Vegetable, a women-owned and led organic produce distribution company based in San Francisco, California. Established in 1974, they source and deliver the freshest and highest quality produce, with unmatched service to our stores several times a week.
Powered by a zero-emission green fleet and driven by purpose, they put their values in action to build a sustainable and equitable food system.
Veritable Vegetable supports organic farmers, increases access to fresh produce, and strengthens diverse communities. Their unique, values-driven business model encourages political change, impacts food policy, and demonstrates a radically different approach to distributing organic produce.
Sustainable and regenerative systems increase energy and resources and are life-affirming. Veritable Vegetable envisions our environment, our economy, and our communities as sustainable systems.
As a women-led business, they take a forward-thinking and innovative approach to solving complex problems. They create a fair and dynamic workplace through cooperative and collaborative leadership. Veritable Vegetable deeply values the people who make up their community of staff, growers, customers, and community partners; collective labor is fundamental to the organic trade.
Veritable Vegetable knows raising women up raises all people. As a women-led business, they apply a systems-thinking approach to solving complex problems. Collaboration, cooperation and deep listening are critical. They are committed to sharing their resources and knowledge, creating an inclusive workplace, and modeling effective women’s leadership.
“We strive for excellence in our work, transparency in our relationships, and integrity through our actions.” – Veritable Vegetable
We love what they do!
Beber was founded with a love for local agriculture. They value local agriculture because our farmers are the backbone of a healthy local food system and economy. They source almonds from California orchards as close as fifteen miles from their facility.
They choose glass bottles because they are fully recyclable, don’t leach harmful chemicals, and because they believe they better preserve the fresh taste of Beber Almondmilk. Once you’re done with the bottle, please remove the label and reuse or recycle your bottle at home.
Water usage and bee health are two important topics for agriculture-based businesses, especially in California. Beber is proud to work with their almond provider Baugher Ranch Organics because they are an industry leader in sustainable practices. Their orchards and grower-partners use the latest technology and drip irrigation to monitor water consumption. Baugher Ranch is also a Certified Bee Friendly farm, which means that their orchards are created as healthy habitats for bees. All of their almonds are certified organic, which also means that they are non-GMO.
After their creamy almondmilk has been pressed from the almond pulp, the almond pulp is donated to a local farmer. He uses the pulp as nutritious feed for his livestock (lucky them!) as well as compost for his farm, so not one drop of almond goodness goes to waste.
We love what they do!
Meet Black Mountain Beauty, a women-owned and women-powered Marin company, makers of organic, non-gmo, no cruelty, vegan and plastic free bath products for your whole family! They care about the future of our oceans!
“I am a farmer out in beautiful West Marin County in Northern California. I love to create products from the bounty of my farm. I am a Fiber Farmer first and create soft, cozy clothing from my Wensleydale sheep and Angora rabbits.
We live close to the beautiful Pacific Ocean beaches which I love to visit. Unfortunately, there is more and more plastic pollution on these beaches every day. So, in an effort to reduce my own use of plastic, I began creating all-natural Shampoo and Conditioner bars that need no plastic packaging. These have been selling like crazy to people who like chemical-free products and also care about plastic pollution in our oceans.
I am branching out to new, everyday personal products that can be made with biodegradable packaging or no packaging at all. Hope you enjoy it.” – Marnie Jackson
They are on a mission to create a zero waste beauty line. There are too many single use plastic containers floating around in the Ocean. Black Mountain Beauty is trying to reduce waste by creating, simple, organic, cruelty-free beauty products in biodegradable or refillable packaging. After spending many a weekend picking up plastic garbage on local ocean beaches, Black Mountain Beauty wanted to make a change in the world by doing their best to eliminate plastic waste.
We love what they do!
Meet Cult Crackers, a women-owned and women-powered Bay Area company, makers of delicious small-batch organic crackers. Cult Crackers co-founders, Dianna and Birgitta, are local moms who met while volunteering at their daughters’ school in Berkeley. They became good friends and business partners when they launched their artisan cracker company. The two women are passionate about what they do, making a good-for-you snack that people love. Their biggest fans are their teenage daughters who also help out at their family-run small business. Cult Crackers, in their colorful red and blue recyclable bags, are a customer favorite.
Their totally addicting crackers are filled with good-for-you organic ingredients and packed with flavor and crunch. They bake their crackers at the Berkeley Kitchens, a wonderful community of small food producers in Berkeley, California.
They want you to enjoy their crackers knowing they’re made with your health and our planet in mind. From the very beginning they decided if they were going to do this, they were going to do it right, using their business as a force for good. They are commited to using only the highest-quality organic ingredients they can find, are certified organic, mix and bake every batch of crackers by hand, package in sustainable packaging, pay their employees a living wage, and do things with care and intention.
They love what they do, and that Cult Crackers nourish people in so many different ways.
We love what they do too!
