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As global grocery coordinator for Whole Foods Market's grocery departments nationwide (accounting for about 35% of the retailer's business), Errol Schweizer is helping pioneer, and ultimately drive, grocery trends.
Chief among them is the desire for product and supply chain transparency, spurred by directives like Whole Foods' mandate that suppliers label genetically modified products as such by 2018.
"Not everything we sell is going to be organic and non-GMO," Schweizer told SN . "Our commitment is transparency, and some suppliers have said, "I don't know if I'm going to be able to go non-GMO and if I can't by your deadline, we'll have to label,' and that's totally acceptable. So in our supply chain there is a willingness to be transparent."
Still, the vast majority of Whole Foods' suppliers who've yet to do so already are vigorously moving to have their products verified as GMO free by certifiers such as the Non-GMO Project. They're moving in such numbers that demands on ingredient supply and auditors have emerged as bottlenecks in the process, according to Schweizer.
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