Nearly a Year Into Whole Foods’ Pollinator Health Policy, Suppliers Share Lessons Learned

By now, we're probably all familiar with some kind of “save the bees” messaging. We may even have some understanding of the alarming decrease in bee populations since the 1990s. The fact that’s often less apparent is how the bee crisis quickly translates to a food crisis, not just for humans but many other organisms that depend on their pollination.

Whole Foods Market has championed environmental stewardship as a part of its core values for some time. It’s this long-standing conversation with suppliers that allowed for ease of transition with its new pollinator health policy, Caitlin Leibert, the company’s vice president of sustainability, said during a recent Trellis webinar. 

“It starts with talking with our suppliers and better understanding the incredible work that they're already doing,” Leibert said. “We could not have made this policy as quickly as we did if the gap was so large. We've been talking for years with our key suppliers about the value of this.” 

This policy fundamentally mandates that all Whole Foods fresh produce and floral suppliers implement a pest management system that reduces the need for chemical pesticides by 2025. It also prohibits the use of nitroguanidine and neonicotinoids in potted plants by that time. These are groups of pesticides that can be particularly harmful to some insects, including bees and other pollinators. While these chemicals are intended to ward off pests that destroy and damage crops, they also affect major ecosystem engineers like bees. At the least, they affect the foraging, reproduction and flying ability of pollinators.

On a micro level, the use of these pesticides will reduce a growers’ crop or flower yield in the short term, but on a macro level it will aggravate the decline of the wild pollinator population. At least one third of the world’s food is produced with the help of pollinators. Flowers and ornamentals will also take a huge hit. So, pollinator loss can have a serious impact on our food systems. 

Whole Foods’ new pollinator policy demonstrates the role companies can play in driving change and making sustainable choices more available to consumers. By ensuring its suppliers comply with a method of agriculture that considers the health of keystone species like pollinators, Whole Foods is giving consumers an option to support conservation. 

“At Whole Foods, we believe food can and should be a force for good and positive change in our communities and environment,” Leibert said. “Because of that, you really have to sort of codify that in a policy to drive change. It's not enough to say we care, that's important, that's step one. But in order to drive meaningful change, we really have to think about policy.” 

The company announced the new policy in December, but it won’t take full effect until 2025, which gives suppliers time to create a transition plan. In the meantime, some of its longtime suppliers that have been a part of the conversations that birthed the policy are helping share alternative practices. 

“We're partnering with suppliers like Rainier Fruit to promote pollinator-friendly practices, including dedicated pollinator habitats and Bee Better certified orchards,” Leibert said. “Again, I think what's really important about this policy is that ... it starts with talking to our farmers.” 

Dedicated habitats and achieving Bee Better certification, which ensures farms are practicing pollinator and biodiversity conservation, are a great start. Some suppliers have already begun to make the switch. But beyond that, Whole Foods understands they might need additional support to make the transition.

“We certainly provide technical tools as needed,” Leibert said. “I think Rainier [Fruit] is a really good example of that. We have a long history of investing within our supply system, as well.”

A network of suppliers sharing best practices isn’t new to Whole Foods. In 2021, the company implemented a regenerative agriculture policy that employed a similar information-sharing method to ease the transition for suppliers. And these policies don’t just come from anywhere. 

“I think our quality standards team is such a unique team,” Leibert said. “There are around 20 subject matter experts, everything from animal welfare to seafood to agricultural practices. So the credit goes to this team largely for creating this policy. They're the policy experts. What's really cool about this work though is, again, the theme of interconnectedness. We want to make sure that when we're talking about pollinator health, we're not doing so in a vacuum. We're recognizing it as a key part within a larger resilient climate and nature health.”