Organizing the Organics

You have probably seen more of those USDA Organic symbols showing up in the grocery aisles of your local Sprouts store. Soon, you'll also start to see them on our signs, too, as we begin to roll out an all-new sign package. But if you are a particularly astute observer, you may have noticed that there are actually different classifications of organic starting to crop up. "100% Organic" products, as the name implies, contain only organically-produced ingredients. "Organic" products, by law, must consist of at least 95% organic ingredients (excluding salt and water); the remaining 5% must consist of nonagricultural substances from a specially-approved list of products that are not commercially available in organic form. There is also another label — "Made with Organic Ingredients" — which can be used to describe processed products that contain at least 70% organic ingredients. These items, however, are not allowed to use the USDA Organic logo.

Got all that? You can learn more on the USDA website.

From the September, 2010 edition of Fresh Off the Press