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Organization Overview:

Where Food Comes From Organic offers certification services to our clients at a reduced cost by bundling various certification and verification services and technology solutions with other WFCF divisions.

Where Food Comes From Organic is positioned to disrupt the organic certification industry due to many strategic changes. These include enhancing our online based platform, streamlining the certification process and leveraging a larger team of skilled certification specialists to deliver a world-class customer service experience, as well as introducing the most unique pricing in the industry today.

Our goal has always been to make organic certification accessible to as many farmers, retailers, restaurants and consumer packaged goods companies as possible, while also making sure that it is cost effective.  We strive to provide world-class customer service while also streamlining the certification process for each and every customer.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Shadow certification specialists to learn technical review processes.

• Support Customer Certification Specialists by reviewing land use history and inputs.

• Help develop educational tools like FAQs and mock audit services for clients exploring organic certification.

• Contribute to client mapping projects and analyze trends in noncompliance and risk data to support education and compliance efforts.

• Assist with data collection, entry, and analysis for specific projects.

• Collaborate with team members to achieve specific objectives.

• Support customer relationship management activities, including customer outreach, feedback collection, and database management.

• Conduct surveys with retailers and clients to identify market needs, interest in organic transitions, and supply chain gaps like Secure Food Supply plans or backup suppliers.

• Help with cost estimates and fee collections.

• Assist in the preparation of reports, presentations, and other communication materials for internal and external stakeholders.

• Attend meetings, take notes, and contribute ideas to discussions.

• Salesforce account maintenance activities & support for Customer Certification Specialist teams.

• Alignment of accounts and customers in internal systems.

• Ensure all research activities and documentation adhere to company standards and regulatory guidelines.

• Maintain accurate and organized records of research data, project milestones, and communication activities.

• Perform any other responsibilities as needed.

Goal: 

• Support Organic Transition Efforts: Assist with technical reviews, create educational resources, and contribute to a mock audit tool to help clients prepare for organic certification.

• Contribute to Data Quality & Insights: Perform data accuracy checks, support client mapping, and help analyze trends in noncompliance and certification risk.

• Engage Clients & Industry Stakeholders: Conduct outreach to clients and retailers to assess interest in organic transition and identify market connections.

• Gain Hands-On Certification Experience: Shadow certification specialists and inspections to learn review processes, traceability checks, and compliance evaluation.

Activities:

• Projects supporting producers transitioning to organic

  • Assisting current certification specialist in technical review work – verification of land use history and input review.

  • Development of WFCFO educational resources – common hurdles to organic and how to overcome them – FAQS for folks wanting to transition to organic

  • Development of an organic mock audit service – This would be a tool or service that WFCFO would like to offer for prospective clients wanting to transition but wants to get an audit result that confirms how close they are to being eligible – confirm that they could really do organic and be ready for organic audit.

  • Helping team with hosting WFCFO Organic 101 mini-webinars initial topics centered around organic resources or common scenarios faced by our clients.

  • Survey of other WFCF clients that are currently not organic to gauge interest in transitioning to organic and provide basic info to folks that may have interest but not sure where to start.

• Data and Tech (e.g. CRM, GIS, digital tools)

  • Assist in OID data quality control checks – ensuring data from WFCFO is accurate to the USDA Organic Integrity Database (OID).

  • Mapping of WFCFO clients to have a visual of all existing clients we work with – this would be so helpful for us as a whole company to be able to gauge where we have gaps in clients or where we have hot spots where we know we have resources and can easily target other clients. Also super helpful for inspection/audit prep and hiring decisions.

  • Noncompliance trends project – Looking at all organic noncompliances from WFCFO to determine trends or best topics for educational resources for clients.

  • Risk Assessment data project – working with data to summarize in a usable format for all team members and to identify highest risk operations currently certified by WFCFO and helping determine appropriate next steps with that risk.

• Retail and Consumer Engagement

  • Survey of retail brands to collect helpful information on what is most important to them.

• Procurement and Supply Chain

  • Survey of organic clients on Secure Food Supply plans.

  • Helping to identify back up suppliers for existing organic handlers in our certification plan.

• Technical Assistance and Client-Facing Roles

  • Learn how to be a certification specialist and do technical reviews – shadow/train and then perform common review tasks like verifying product list against field list and seed list, verification of suppliers, review of livestock purchase records and basic traceability.

  • Shadow for unannounced inspections.

• Business, Finance and Marketing

  • Organic Marketing Strategy Development – help pull OID data to identify best places to target for organic certification with WFCFO.

  • Develop and deliver sales pitch to existing clients where organic bundled might be beneficial to all parties.

  • Assist in client fee collections process and cost estimate development.

• Measure for Success: 

  • Completed 1 technical review task with supervisor feedback.

  • Contributed to 1 educational resource.

  • Participated in the planning or delivery of at least 1 Organic 101 webinar.

  • Performed USDA Organic Integrity Database (OID) data checks for a defined client list with improved accuracy.

  • Supported completion of client mapping visuals or contributed to a data summary used in team planning.

  • Developed and distributed at least 1 survey to clients or retailers, with a summary of key findings.

  • Documented interest or barriers to organic transition from non-organic clients.

  • Completed 1 mock technical review task independently with supervisor review.

  • Demonstrated understanding of organic compliance basics through a short end-of-internship presentation.

• Knowledge & Skills Expected to be Gained:

  • Working knowledge of USDA Organic standards and certification processes.

  • Experience with technical reviews, compliance documentation, and audit preparation.

  • Data analysis and quality control using tools like the Organic Integrity Database (OID).

  • Communication and outreach through webinars, surveys, and educational content.

  • Collaboration across teams and exposure to client services, marketing, and accounting. 

Compensation & Qualifications: 

Compensation is $15 per hour for undergraduate interns and $18 for graduate interns, not to exceed a total of $2,250/undergraduate or $2,700/graduate per semester. Interns are not eligible for benefits.

To Apply: Please fill out this application by January 21, 2026