Dive Brief:
- The Real Co. is taking transparency in the food and beverage industry up a notch. The company sells single origin products like salt, sugar, and rice and labels them as "100% Single Origin" and with the individual farmer or producer's name.
- The company plans to work with an unconfirmed third-party certifier to make the "Single Origin Verified" label an official certification process so other companies can use it. The certification scheme will debut at Natural Products Expo West in March.
- The single origin model eliminates the need for middle men, which cuts down on the number of people who take a cut. That keeps prices competitive on the consumer level while allowing The Real Co. to pay its producers above local market value, which then enables producers to invest in their operations and improve the quality of their product.
Dive Insight:
This label is another step toward increased transparency for food and beverage companies. The single origin label will have different levels of certification, so a manufacturer seeking it out won't necessarily have to abide by the same business model as The Real Co.
"[The single origin certification] talks about not just where the product comes from, but whether the farms they source from have a sustainable program, whether the products are non-GMO, how the people are being treated on the farms, and so on," The Real Co.’s CEO Belal El-Banna told Civil Eats.
The chocolate, tea, and coffee industries have already embraced single origin sourcing, and to an extent, this model is replacing fair trade products for various companies.
Major manufacturers may adopt this practice in the future if they can make it economically viable. Because of production scaling, it's not likely single origin will become the norm, but it will be increasingly common as more producers strive for product transparency.