'Sustainability' Is Big In Food Retail, But Hard To Prove

Published January 23, 2014 at 12:50 PM CST

Whole Foods already employs a labeling system to identify the sustainability ratings of its seafood. The company plans to introduce a similar system for flowers and produce later this year. (Quim Gil/Flickr)

When you head to the supermarket, you have a lot of choices these days. You can choose from any number of brands, prices and labels. You can go organic, buy local, make sure your food is antibiotic free. And now you can add “sustainable” to the grocery list.

Retailers and restaurants like Whole Foods, Chipotle and Walmart are all providing information to consumers about how “sustainably” some of their products were produced. But it’s hard to know just what “sustainably” means and how to judge whether food was produced in a “sustainable” way.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Abbie Fentress Swanson of Harvest Public Media reports on the rise of sustainability in our food.

Read more on this story via Harvest Public Media

Reporter

Abbie Fentress Swanson, reporter for Harvest Public Media. She’s based at Mid-Missouri Public Radio and tweets @dearabbie.