Our Baseline Protein Standard

Sources that meet our “must haves” at the consistent volumes we need, and at core prices we can handle. Basically our take on the Naturally Raised standard – more humanely raised animals, fed vegetarian diets, with no funky stuff added and with family farmers at the wheel. In food label terms (see our glossary for more on each), here are the ones that typically apply:

Always -

• Antibiotic free
• No added hormones
• All vegetarian diet, no animal byproducts
• Cage/crate free
• Free to roam
• Family farm driven – most often, family farm networks/cooperatives

Sometimes -

• Pastured – mostly beef and pork
• Organic*
• Certified humane*

Current Sources in our Baseline mix include: Pineland Farms Beef, Heritage Acres Pork (here’s a vid of one of their farmers made by Whole Foods), and Freebird Chicken. Sourcing isn’t a one-and-done sort of deal so we’ll constantly be evaluating what we have, where we can improve, etc.

For more on our sister Benchmark Protein Standard, go here.

Over time, as choices evolve and access improves, we hope to build more on this Baseline. Along the way, we’ll commit to playing an open hand on our choices and sharing what we learn as we go.

In the meantime, if you have questions about any part of our sourcing approach, email us and we’ll get you an answer. We love this stuff but it isn’t an exact science so consistently engaging on it will keep moving the ball forward.

* A word on Organic and certified humane standards. No doubt there’s a lot to like about the standards the USDA has set for Organic. And the handful of emerging certifications for humanely raised animals are also encouraging (we’ve gone into a little more detail on them here). But there are also real questions about how these are used, how widely they’re adopted, etc. And some of the coolest family farms we’ve visited would be ruled out with a strict requirement on either of these. So for us they’re “could be in either standard” items that we’ll judge on a case-by-case basis.