Developing product standards: Defining the landscape for natural products

Whole Foods Market has developed standards for body care and cleaning products that puts the company at the forefront of promoting safe and healthy products. Product ingredients are evaluated for safety, environmental impact, sourcing, and efficacy in cooperation with vendors. As a result, 400 chemicals have been identified as being unacceptable in products achieving our Premium Body Care Standards. These chemicals include parabens, polypropylene and polyethylene glycols, sodium lauryl and laureth sulfates. Our Eco-Scale rating system is the first cleaning-products standards of any retailer and the highest standards of any "green cleaners" standards-setting group. Based on audits conducted by a third-party audit agency, household cleaning products are rated red, orange, yellow or green on our Eco-Scale. Our product standards and systems allow customers to make informed choices when ingredients in cleaning products, in particular, are not required to be fully disclosed. Programs such as these also encourage producers to create better products.