What Is Certified Grass-Fed Organic?

When you are standing at a shelf in a store or browsing through options online, what is one of the most confusing things to shop for?

The answer is often food.

There are hundreds of claims on packages, including on dairy. Many of those claims mean something, but some mean little (or nothing verifiable). And when it comes to grass-fed dairy, the claims are at best confusing and at worst misleading. You don’t need that mess when you’re there in a busy store, trying to choose the best food for your family.

At Organic Valley, we recognized this was a Big Problem, and so did Maple Hill Creamery. We worked together on a Big Idea: to create a grass-fed organic standard and certification seal that everyone can trust.

To ensure open and transparent labeling, the Certified Grass-Fed Organic Dairy seal is owned and administered by a third party called the Organic Plus Trust (OPT), Inc. Now, when you want organic dairy from cows that eat all grass and no grains, you can look for one seal:

What makes this different from the other ‘grass-fed’ labels you see on the store shelf?

Other companies have flashy graphics that say something about grass somewhere, but do those words really have any power behind them? How do those companies know for sure the milk wasn’t combined with non-grass-fed milk when it was packaged? How do they know the cows are really grazing on enough fresh, green pastures to make a difference in the milk?

We are here to clear up the confusion. When you see the seal above, you can rest assured that someone physically checks to see if the cows really do get their grazing time. This new certification means there’s no funny business between when the certified grass-fed milk leaves the farm and when it’s packaged — it’s kept separate the whole way from the farm to you. With other grass-fed claims, you can’t be sure you are actually getting what you paid for.

Read more here.