Food Safety & Quality

Farming Organically:  Our commitment starts with our choice to farm organically, one which we made more than 30 years ago. It influences how we plant, grow, harvest, test, inspect, wash, handle and package the Earthbound Farm products you enjoy today.

Choosing Seasonal Growing Regions:  For much of the year, California’s Salinas Valley is sunny and warm, which is the ideal climate for growing leafy greens. But when fall starts to bring cool nights, we transition our growing to the Sonoran desert. This allows Earthbound Farm to provide the highest quality leafy greens throughout the year.

Doing the Groundwork:  We grow food outside and that means there are factors we don’t have complete control over – like weather, among other things. But we do learn to work in partnership with Mother Nature. Before we even plant a seed in the ground, we walk our fields to evaluate the surrounding land and ensure the farm has the right environment for growing food.

Staying Connected with the Land & People:  Once we start growing, our farmers use Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and are audited by a third-party using an international standard of farming called Global GAP. Earthbound Farm is also a proud member of California’s Leafy Green Marketing Agreement which regulates food-safe farming practices, such as routine farm water and soil amendment testing. Further, days prior to and on the day of any harvest, trained farm food safety staff are on farm, inspecting the environment, employee health and product quality.

Inspecting our Harvested Greens: Once our greens are harvested and taken to our manufacturing facility, our Quality Assurance and Food Safety Team inspects every lot of product to assure it meets our high quality standards. A fundamental step in that process is our Test & Hold Program which takes samples from every lot and tests for food pathogens. Any greens that do not pass the test are destroyed.

Cooling & Cleaning: When dealing with a highly perishable product such as freshly cut organic greens, it’s critical to refrigerate them at 34-38 degrees Fahrenheit to help keep the greens fresh and flavorful. Next, we sort all greens to remove anything that’s not greens and then the product is triple-washed and spun dry before it’s packaged.

Packaging our Greens with Care:  Our plastic packaging – which we lovingly refer to as the “clamshell” because of how it opens – is critical to bringing you the freshest possible product we can because it protects the delicate lettuce leaves from damage, such as bruising; or exposure to extreme moisture, temperatures, debris or other contaminants. We thermoform all of our clamshells from post-consumer recycled materials on our campus. Our Quality Assurance and Food Safety Team oversee all incoming recycled plastic and the integrity of our packaging. Learn more about our packaging.

Conducting Final Inspections: Once our greens are packaged, and before they are shipped to our customers, they all pass through a metal detector and are again tested for food pathogens.

Allergen Control: To help protect against accidental allergen contamination in our production facility, we hold ourselves and our suppliers to rigorous standards of safety and consistency and clearly declare all major allergens on our packaging. The following allergens, based on the FDA’s Major Allergen List, may be present in some Earthbound Farm products. For more information on the specific products that contain allergens, please check the product label, or contact us.

Traceability: We know where every leaf comes from in every salad we produce. All packages are stamped with a code that allows us to find that information and tells us:

• A: In which facility the salad was packed
• B: The date the salad was packed
• C Which shift packed the salad
• D Which line produced the salad
• E What time the salad was packed

Always Striving to Get Better: Earthbound Farm is a proud participant in the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)—the premiere international food safety accrediting body. GFSI is a food industry-driven initiative providing thought leadership, collaboration and guidance on food safety management systems necessary for safety along the supply chain. Learn more here.