Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Today we went to the Frontier Co-op. Frontier buys and packages organic spices and seasonings. Upon our arrival we came across our tour guide named Patley Konvent. Patly was truly one of a kind. It was like Patly had been pulled right out of a hippie commune from the 1960s. She was very excited, extremely friendly, all about organic food, and totally just had that hippie vibe. The funny thing was that the group was honestly spending more time paying attention to Patly over paying attention to the tour. Regardless, by the end of our session at Frontier, we would come to learn so much about Frontier’s progressive modern workplace, along with its genuine care for each of its customers.
When we walked into Frontier, Patly took us to the office portion of the building. In the offices we got to actually meet the CEO of Frontier named Tony Bedard. Although a little startled (our tour guide, Patl\y, virtually yanked him out of his office), he still was a good sport and talked to us more about what Frontier does, why it prides itself on organic spices, and why it is so cool to work at Frontier. One of the great things about Frontier is that its employees are actually treated like human beings. For starters, subsidized childcare is provided in house! A state of the art daycare is on the bottom floor of the building. This allows employees to rest at ease knowing that their children are taken care of while the children know that their parents are very close if they really needed them. Frontier has a gym in the building to which all employees have access. Frontier also provides subsidized healthy prepared meals in its kitchen. Frontier prides itself on foster an enlightened work-life balance for its employees. The last really important aspect of working at Frontier is that overtime is not mandatory. This lets the employee know that Frontier values them, and they can decide if they have time for overtime when they are already on overtime with their family and kids.
After a tour with Patly of the packaging plant, our last stop before a delicious lunch in the Frontier cafeteria was their labs. In these labs, we got to talk about a very serious problem that Frontier is having to deal with: its GMO label. Many companies nowadays love to put NON-GMO on their food labels so buyers think that they are getting something healthy. Many consumers also even equate NON-GMO to mean it is an organic product. This simply isn’t the case. Organic products are not GMO by the USDA’s organic definition, but reverse is not true. Much of the corn and soy crop around the world is GMO, and those corn and soy-based products find their way into our food. Yet many food producers like to put NON-GMO on their products because it is a really easy standard for their food to make and have on their label and because of the non-GMO project’s label. This however hurts organic farmers and food in a way that consumers think NON-GMO is the same as organic. As Rabine pointed out, a lot of non-GMO products could have been produced with synthetic pesticides, herbicides, etc., and the farmers who produced the food product could also have been exploited. So, Rabine was not a fan of the Non-GMO Project label as compared to the organic one. I found this distinction between Non-GMO and organic food to be the most interesting one out of the whole tour. The moral of the story is that when a food label says NON-GMO it is not something really special or healthy. Overall I was absolutely blown away by not only Frontiers business practices toward its employers but its dedication to organic products grown and sold around the world.