Another week brings more exciting news for our Where Food Comes From fans! A few weeks ago, we got a chance to introduce you to our latest Where Food Comes From Standard: CARE™. We are humbled at the wonderful response from consumers as well as our producers who have embraced CARE so quickly. With that positive response, we are excited to announce an update to the CARE suite of sustainability standards with our most recent addition, PoultryCARE! So, keep reading as we explore more about CARE and introduce PoultryCARE into the CARE family.
What is CARE?
John and Leann Saunders, the founders of Where Food Comes started with a vision more than 25 years ago to create traceable, transparent food systems for producers and consumers. Now, Where Food Comes From has expanded that vision by introducing a new program called CARE.
Let’s tell you a bit about the new program. Where Food Comes From CARE is a suite of sustainability standards. If you’ve been following our journey for a while, then your familiar with what sustainability means. If your new to us, don’t worry, we will give you a quick crash course. You might hear others throwing the word around and it may be used in many different ways. When Where Food Comes From talks about “Sustainable Agriculture” they mean doing what’s right when it comes to the animals, the environment and the people and communities in which they live. This means caring for animals, environment, and people through wellbeing policies and practices, while also reducing their waste and energy by creating long-term strategies.
The CARE program certifies participating farmers and ranchers are implementing best practices in animal husbandry, environmental stewardship and a productive engagement with their local communities and the people within them.
The Standards
The BeefCARE Standard was the first program introduced into the CARE suite of sustainability Standards. IMI Global, a division of Where Food Comes From, launched BeefCARE to help to provide a better future for all generations to come by allowing producers to have a continuous improvement plan on their operations.
The DairyCARE Standard was launched next. This program is administered by Validus Verification Services, a division of Where Food Comes From. Dairy operations are evaluated under three specific Validus programs, this includes animal welfare, environment and worker review standards.
The PoultryCARE standard is the newest to be added to the CARE suite. The main objective in developing the PoultryCARE standard was to develop a set of standards that reflect state of the art best practice and science in sustainable poultry production for the protection of birds, workers and the environment. PoultryCARE is the poultry industry’s most comprehensive third-party verified sustainability program. It will be administered by WFCF’s IMI Global division, utilizing reviewers and auditors with extensive experience in poultry production. Certification to the PoultryCARE Standard is achieved following on-farm evaluations by IMI Global auditors who focus on the same three pillars as the BeefCARE Standard : Animal Husbandry, Environmental Stewardship and People & Community.
The launch of PoultryCARE follows the recent rollout of WFCF’s BeefCARE™ and DairyCARE™ Standards. WFCF’s goal is to establish its CARE sustainability Standards as the gold standard throughout the food supply chain.
To Learn More
Today, Where Food Comes From supports more than 15,000 farmers, ranchers, vineyards, wineries, processors, retailers, distributors, trade associations, consumer brands and restaurants with a wide variety of value-added services. That’s a lot of support and we’re growing! The reason why farmers, consumers, brands and other organizations work with Where Food Comes From is because we lead with our heart. Sustainability is important to everyone at Where Food Comes From. The demand has never been greater and Where Food Comes From is here to deliver on those demands through more transparency and standards. So we thank you for letting us speak to you from our heart about something that we CARE so much about!
For more information, visit WFCF CARE.
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