Our customers will know as much as they want to know about the food they receive from The Foodery. That’s the way it should be. Unlike certified organic products offered at grocery stores, organic food served at restaurants and food service businesses is an unregulated industry. Because of this, we choose to guide our practice of crafting food by a set of internal standards of quality. Over time, these standards become tradition.

100% Organic Produce

The Foodery serves only organic fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices. The majority of conventional produce is adulterated by the pesticides of large scale, monoculture-style farming. In addition, most produce travels great distances, losing its nutrition by the time it gets to your plate. Our solution to these issues is to utilize 100% organic produce and make as many local selections of fresh produce as possible. Learn more about our stance on choosing produce.

Meats

With beef, pork, chicken, fish and other meats we choose only grass-fed, pasture-raised and wild-caught selections. Animals that roam in pastures and consume an herbivore’s diet live natural lives and produce the best food products. These animals bypass the harmful conditions of factory farming such as:

• Regular (non-medical) use of antibiotics
• Bovine Growth Hormone supplementation and synthetic steroids
• Infections and pathogenic exposure from factory farms
• Harmful additives from unnatural diets
• Unnatural stress levels due to unsuitable living conditions

Click here to see why grass-fed is superior to grain-fed.

Pantry Goods

We make mostly organic choices on dry ingredients and purchase them as locally as possible. Conventional selections are made occasionally when a product is produced locally and not compromised by processing or substances on our Banned Ingredients List.

Calorie Control

Calorie control is equally important to food quality. Every meal produced at The Foodery goes through calorie analysis so each meal can be used as a component to the proper amount of daily calories needed to sustain your healthy body.

Other Standards

Carbohydrates

Low-gylcemic carbohydrates can provide energy without significantly raising insulin levels. Our food is crafted with carbohydrates that create a meal with a lower gylcemic load. See how we chose carbohydrates based on glycemic response.

Sodium Levels

Restaurants and grocery stores today offer too many processed products containing far too much sodium. Our meals contain both lower amounts of salt and hand-mined salt. Click here to understand the important difference between hand-mined salt and table salt. We encourage our customers to adjust their palates to a lower sodium diet.

Sugar

Seems extreme but today’s average American adult consumes 170 pounds of sugar per year! While childhood and adult obesity levels reach pandemic proportions, we create food that tastes good without much sugar. Our food is selectively sweetened using only natural sweeteners like Stevia and natural sugars. Click here to better understand artificial sweeteners.

Banned Ingredients

Although we avoid most harmful food additives and toxins by serving whole and organic foods, it’s important we list the substances you will never find in our menus. We continue to modify this list of substances as we see fit it.

• Artificial colors
• Artificial flavors
• Arsenic
• Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH, rBST)
• Monosodium Glutamate
• Sucralose
• Bleached/processed sugar
• High fructose corn syrup
• Bleached flour
• Hydrogenated oils (trans fats)

The quality standards for our products naturally direct us to local suppliers for procuring many of our ingredients. We build relationships with suppliers where through doing business, many positive and often unintentional benefits happen in the following ways:

Environment

• Global food distribution systems are avoided - Less energy is used to process, package and transport food from creation to consumption. The soil, water and air benefit from the elimination of such systems.
• Assurance of animal welfare and sustainable practices - Sourcing products face-to-face allows us to understand our supplier’s practices in crop harvesting and animal husbandry.

Economy

• Local farmers stay profitable - Local produce is often times more expensive than common non-native produce. Why? Local production can be more labor-intensive and less industrialized. With local farming, products reach the end consumer with fewer “middle-man” expenses. These savings become the healthy profits for the local farmer, incentivizing them to expand their efforts of creating sustainable food.
• More of the consumer’s dollar is spent on food quality with local suppliers - Imported non-native food carries with it processing, packaging and transportation costs. To keep prices competitive, imported food is often compromised in quality to allow these costs to become part of the food price. Sourcing food nearby eliminates these compromises while local economies flourish.

Quality

• Better nutrition - Since fruits and vegetables begin losing nutritional content when picked and pulled, local foods have the most nutrients. Our nearby suppliers give us the best opportunities for quality.
• Fresh whole foods - The freshest foods come from nearby suppliers who do not use additives, pesticides or artificial hormones. We seek out the texture, taste and vibrant colors of food provided by local and organic suppliers.

Keep Meals Cold

Meals are delivered fresh so they should be eaten no later than 3 to 4 days of receiving them. Refrigerate them at all times. Freeze them if you absolutely must.

Follow Directions

Meals have custom sauce cups and heating instructions that when followed, provide the taste and texture we intend. Read your menu and containers before digging in.

Don’t Overeat

Our meals are intended to satisfy you with a proper amount of calories without overeating. Wait 20 minutes after eating your meal before deciding you’re still hungry. The brain takes about 20 minutes to signal to your body that your stomach is full.

Stay Hydrated

Drinking enough water throughout the day helps regulate your appetite. The brain first sends a signal of hunger when the problem is dehydration. Keep hydrated everyday to properly recognize when you’re hungry. Quickly educate yourself on how to stay hydrated.

Practice Portion Control

Daily calorie control is a fundamental part of sustaining a healthy body. We encourage you to consider the meal sizes we serve when you’re ordering restaurant meals or portioning the meals you prepare at home.

Recycle

Meals are served in #5 polypropylene recyclable plastic containers. Read our quick tips to enlighten yourself on how easy recycling can be.

Businesses usually have a much bigger impact on the environment than an individual. What seems like a trivial choice to a business can have exponential impacts on the world around us. As an environmental steward, companies must understand just as individuals do, where to make choices for the sake of our planet. Some sustainable choices we’ve made only require a little more thought and effort while others won’t make a material impact for months or years. But developing ways to preserve the environment as part of our success is the only way to advance – especially in an agriculture-related business. Are we doing everything right? No. But we’ve adopted Reduce, Reuse, Recycle as a part of our decisions as we continue to learn.

One of the biggest improvements The Foodery strives to achieve is the packaging materials we use. We work towards the day when we can replace our packaging with more sustainable materials that provide the level of performance we need. As we implement more environmentally aware procedures into our business, we hope to build a more sustainable business and encourage a healthier planet.

We currently make the following efforts towards greater sustainability:

• Recycling as much glass, paper and plastic in our facility as possible
• Ensuring all edible food gets eaten and composting the majority of our food waste
• Reducing the use of paper products throughout our entire business
• Operating The Foodery with materials made from recycled material

The safety of the food we eat is as important if not more than the food itself. Most food preparation rules are enforced by law but we like to let you know about some of the additional standards we follow in The Foodery’s kitchen. We take these necessary precautions when preparing meals:

1. Dish soaps and sanitization solvents: We implement natural solvents and dish washing soaps with no harmful chemicals or animal testing.

2. Proper cooking oils: We are mindful of the proper smoke points of different cooking oils when cooking foods at different temperatures. Read our position on the best cooking oils and how to cook with them.

3. Polycarbonate Plastic and Bisphenol-A (BPA): Polycarbonate plastic (indicated by the #7 on the bottom of some plastic containers) can leach potentially harmful chemicals especially when micro waved. Bisphenol-A (commonly known as BPA) is a potentially harmful endocrine disrupting chemical found in polycarbonate plastic that may now be linked to heart disease, obesity, brain dysfunction and other health problems. The Foodery has committed to protecting our customers from BPA by purchasing from BPA free suppliers and serving food in #5 polypropylene (BPA free) microwave safe containers. See more here about our position as well as the major studies being done on BPA.

4. Food safety Laws: At the Foodery’s licensed commercial kitchen, we follow all food safety rules and laws. Many states, including Massachusetts, have implemented the majority of the federal food safety regulations. Due to the nature of how The Foodery operates, we take special notice to the following laws:

   • Ensuring meals stay at the safe temperature from creation to consumption

   • Proper hygiene systems are monitored in all practices

   • Inventory is stored at proper temperatures and in safe locations

   • Click here to visit the FDA’s food safety regulations

5. Non-Stick Pans: Non-stick pans are never used in our food production. Click here to read our philosophy on the safety of different cookware.