Exciting news—we're officially Non-GMO verified!

This certification is something that we've been wanting to get for a long time (back to when we first started Ground Up!), but we never found that we had the time and resources it took to make it happen. Fortunately, after months of work, we are proud to display the butterfly logo on our core product lineup!

So, what does it mean to be Non GMO verified? This means that we've worked with a third party organization to verify that the products we produce don't contain any genetically modified organisms (aka GMOs). According to the Non GMO Project, a GMO is "a plant, animal, microorganism or other organism whose genetic makeup has been modified in a laboratory using genetic engineering or transgenic technology. This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods." While GMOs might be bad for your body, they are also bad for the environment. They increase pesticide use and toxicity, and cause economic harm to farmers and the food system.

Customers have asked us throughout the years whether our ingredients were all non-GMO, and while the the answer has always been no, we are thrilled to finally have the butterfly to connote that quickly, and hopefully in doing so we'll build trust with our customers. (We care a lot about the ingredients we source and the quality of the goods in our products, and we want you to know it!)

So what is the verification process like? In short, we work with every supplier to verify that their growing practices are in line with non GMO standards. Every ingredient from vanilla beans to hazelnuts to chia seeds has to go through this process, so just collecting supplier information alone can take months! We then have our production facility audited, and the third party auditors check everything from our cleaning logs to our storage methods and everything in between. Going forward, we'll have to renew it every year to ensure we're staying compliant, too!

Major shout-out to our former Assistant Production Manager Julia who helped spearhead this process, work with our suppliers and project managed the whole thing. 

If you have any add'l questions, feel free to reach out to us at customercare@grounduppdx.com, or find more info on the Non GMO Project website!