Mar 25, 2025

Equitable Food Initiative streamlines worker certification program

Equitable Food Initiative (EFI), a workforce development and certification organization that partners with growers, farmworkers and retailers, has instituted a more streamlined approach for its certification process.

Building on a decade of experience certifying produce farming operations and incorporating valuable input from growers, suppliers, retailers, auditors and other key partners, EFI is evolving its certification program.

Market feedback consistently reports that EFI’s core strengths are in workforce engagement and workplace culture change. EFI is responding by streamlining its training and auditing processes. Farming operations seeking certification will therefore audit to EFI’s social and culture of food safety standards, with the option to include the integrated pest management standards, according to a news release.

To drive efficiencies and cost effectiveness in the certification program, EFI is no longer conducting GFSI-recognized technical food safety audits, since many growers already hold certificates from other programs. EFI offers growers more flexibility to train and develop their worker-manager collaborative teams, and to choose the standards they audit against.

In recent years, EFI has also introduced a certification program for farm labor contractors and another that satisfies the Regenerative Organic Certified gold-level worker fairness standards, both focused solely on social responsibility and worker engagement, according to the release.

“EFI’s certification program has been recognized for its unique approach of engaging workers at every level of a farming operation and fostering the development of collaborative worker-manager teams on each farm,” according to the release. “The program is recognized by major retailers, including Costco Wholesale, Kroger, Sam’s Club, Target, Walmart and Whole Foods Market. Independent third-party evaluations have consistently demonstrated the program’s effectiveness in driving positive cultural change, establishing integrated management systems and improving communication and skill development among workers.”

Costco Wholesale recognizes the value of EFI’s rigorous certification process, which it believes is largely attributed to the active engagement of workers in all facets of the operation, Preston Witt, Costco’s human rights director, said in the release. “Streamlining and consolidating the process to what EFI does best is incredibly exciting, especially given the industry’s strong and growing commitment to social responsibility and sustainability,” he said in the release.