It’s Valentine’s week and there couldn’t be a more perfect week for this week’s blog. What comes to mind when you think of someone speaking from their heart? When you speak from the heart you’re open and honest with your communication. One way to speak from the heart is telling a powerful story about your life. Maybe you talk about an event or something that touched your heart in a specific way. Today we are happy to speak from our heart about the latest Where Food Comes From Standard. We would like to introduce you to CARE™ – Food from the Heart.
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. Where Food Comes From CARE has been launched in the beef and dairy industries, with more to come in 2020.
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 created new technology platforms to help farmers and ranchers capture and analyze data. This data is critical in understanding what consumers want and to meet requirements in other markets.
IMI Global launching BeefCARE will help to provide a better future for all generations to come by allowing producers to have a continuous improvement plan on their operations.
Speaking of improvement brings us to the latest addition to the CARE suite – the DairyCARE Standard. This program will be administered by Validus Verification Services, a division of Where Food Comes From. Dairy operations will be evaluated under three specific Validus programs, this includes animal welfare, environment and worker review standards. As a consumer, you’re looking for certain preferences when it comes to your food choices and Where Food Comes From hears your concerns and is answering those through the CARE Standard.
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 this Valentine’s Day week, we thank you for letting us speak to you from our heart about something that we CARE so much about!
For more information, https://wfcfcare.com.