A “good” food business needs to protect the integrity of its product first and foremost, and must:

Deliver true and measurable value

• Demonstrate the highest level of quality by incorporating only unadulterated natural ingredients.
• Be produced and distributed with minimal processing and packaging.
• Be made and sold with transparency and integrity.

Be socially just and responsible

• Be honest in all business activities and contribute to the strength and growth of supporting communities.
• Defend the rights of all workers to equal access to job opportunities and a fair and livable wage.
• Show respect for the dignity, welfare, and safety of workers throughout the food supply chain by providing clean and safe working environments and adequate support services, including affordable healthcare and childcare.
• Support humane conditions for food animals.
• Promote good health through education and the delivery of safe, unadulterated, nutritious food.

Maintain conscientious stewardship of the environment

• Benefit the natural order: “Do no harm.”
• Respect eco-system limits on food growth, harvest, production, processing, and distribution.
• Avoid ecologically destructive practices, such as mono-cropping, over-pasturing and over-fishing, water and air pollution, soil destruction and erosion, and destruction of habitat.
• Improve biodiversity and ecosystem stability.
• Actively work within local communities and the region to build back climate resiliency and adapt new developments and systems to adjust to climate change.

Contribute to the social and economic well-being of the community:

• Account for the cost and value of natural capital, as measured through ecological economics.
• Support local and rural economies, family farms and food-based businesses, and the diversity of rural culture.
• Generate a reasonable profit to support the long-term viability of the business.
• Create real social and economic benefits to society.