Honey

• If grown domestically, they are locally sourced wherever possible; traceable; and grown without the use of synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers.
• If not grown domestically on a commercial scale, they are farm-direct, certified organic or Fair Trade certified.

• Creating a safe and healthy work environment where employees receive a fair wage, are safe and respected at work and have access to the resources they need to keep themselves healthy.
• Offering a diversity, equity, and inclusion training to staff members and/or leadership annually.
• Thoughtfully acknowledging the heritage of culturally-specific food on websites, packaging and/or marketing materials.
• If your company is Publicly-held, Owned/Partially-owned by publicly-held compan(y)ies, or has over $100 million in annual revenue, your company, as well as its parent company(ies), are required to meet additional criteria to become Good Food Qualified:
  • Offer a minimum of 12 weeks of paid parental leave to all employees
  • Have at least one woman, minority, or LGBTQIA+ representative on their Board of Directors
  • Have a proven track record of prioritizing a safe and fairly-compensated work culture, with no violations in the area of wage or workplace safety in the past 5 years. This will be verified on the Good Jobs First Violation Tracker

Additionally, beekeepers who own and/or manage the bees locally and extract the honey must:

• Practice good animal husbandry, including:
  • Do not locate hives within a five-mile radius of crops that receive heavy usage of agrochemicals.**
  • Do not regularly relocate any hives major distances for commercial pollination services.***
  • Manage hives using minimal chemical interventions (miticides, antibiotics, etc.), in response to need and never prophylactically, following prescribed application guidelines.
  • Feed balanced nutrition when needed, that is non-GMO and free of high fructose corn syrup and artificial ingredients, including colors, flavors and preservatives.
• Practice social responsibility, including:
  • Engage their community in education.
  • If staff is employed in tending the hives and harvesting the honey, they are treated respectfully and given fair compensation.

SFA has deep respect for the work of all beekeepers who are practicing responsible husbandry and caring for the health of pollinators. We therefore invite beekeepers in these conventionally-farmed regions, who are creating healthy, abundant, diverse, agrochemical-free pollinator habitat, to enter. They will be asked to provide compelling documentation of their work to balance the surrounding environs by providing plentiful local forage for their hives.