Natural Grocers Expands Its Meat and Seafood Department

Natural Grocers recently refreshed its meat and seafood department selections in all its grocery stores across 19 states. The new and improved meat and seafood department features high-quality and exotic varieties of grass-fed meat, pork, poultry, fish and seafood. Consumers can expect a wide variety of offerings including bison, beef, yak, wild boar, elk, venison, lamb, pork chicken, turkey, ostrich, cod, mahi mahi, salmon, scallops, shrimp, tuna, pollock, rockfish and sole. 

“Our standards ensure that all of our meat is naturally and humanely raised, and our seafood is sustainably sourced, which we believe is the best for our consumers, the animals and our environment,” said Kemper Isely, Natural Grocers Co-President. “We also believe our consumers appreciate that we make this incredible quality and variety affordable.”

Natural Grocers maintains high meat standards, which at a minimum for all fresh and frozen meat includes humane raising requirements, no hormones, no growth promoting drugs, no use antibiotics, no land animal by-products and non-GMO feed is always preferred. The retailer’s high seafood standards mean it only stocks 3rd party certified sustainable options including wild-caught fish, scallops and organically farmed shrimp.

Natural Grocers has put together a ranking system for their fresh and frozen meat selections that will help consumers easily identify and find the quality standards they are looking for. Natural Grocers’ new ranking system, which identifies meat and seafood products such as bronze, silver and gold, is based on criteria that matter to consumers and improves transparency, which is often lacking in label claims. 

Natural Grocers’ bronze-level standards would likely match the highest standard found at other grocery stores and farmers’ markets with the silver and gold rankings focusing on bold regenerative farming practices that safeguard a healthy planet for future generations. Years of complex information went into Natural Grocers’ meat and seafood standards and consumers can clearly see how individual products are raised and produced. Consumers can simply look at the “Our Standards” chart on the meat and seafood department doors to see what attributes the products carry. The individual rankings give the consumers a lot of information in only a few seconds, allowing them to feel confident about what they are buying.

“The unique thing we’ve done is create real transparency and information about animal product labels so that consumers can better understand, and more importantly, trust the food they’re buying and eating is really what it claims to be,” said Heather Isely, Natural Grocers VP. “There are so many loopholes in each animal species industry and we’ve done our best to bring light to those areas of confusion and provide information that is usable at the point of purchase. Often there is a disconnect on how food gets from the farm to the table and we want to help bridge that information gap.”