Behind the Scenes With the Team That Guides Our Industry-Leading Product Standards

When something seems obvious to you, you don’t always stop to think: Does everyone else know about this, too? 

While we’ve shared a bit about our ingredient standards before, we realized our members might not know about all of the people and the countless hours that go into maintaining our quality standards, the highest in the industry. The real story? It takes a group of experts and a company-wide obsession with quality to get us to our selection of the very best products that we trust, and know our members will trust — and love — too. 

The Experts Leading the Charge 

To hear more about how we solidified our sky-high standards, we talked to April Lane, Chief Merchandising Officer at Thrive Market, and two members of her team: Carla Hechler, VP of Food Safety and Quality Assurance (FSQA), whose group of registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) and certified food scientists (CFSs) vets the safety and accuracy of every ingredient label, claim, and certification you see on our site, and Bri Waldoch, Senior Director of Owned Brands, whose team partners with farmers and suppliers worldwide to source the top-quality, affordable foods, supplements, cleaning, home goods, and personal care products in Thrive Market brands. 

Across food safety, owned brands, and category management, the Merchandising team at Thrive Market is dedicated to maintaining and elevating our hyper-curated selection of products. “We want to make sure that we are doing the homework for our members and that we’re not reliant on the FDA or the USDA or the EU standards, even,” Lane says. “We want to make sure that we’re taking a look at it ourselves and with our own experts, and that we’re continuing to evolve the standards as the food landscape changes.”

To explain our approach to curation, we group our standards into five key areas that define what it means to be Thrive Market Approved: 

• Trusted Ingredients 
• Ethical Sourcing
• Planet Positive
• On a Mission
• Tasted & Tested 

In practice, that means our teams review the ins and outs of every single item before we put it on our virtual shelves, ensuring it meets the Thrive Market bar. 

#1 Trusted Ingredients: What Goes In & What’s Left Out 

Reviewing ingredient lists for more than 5,000 products is no small feat — but that’s exactly what we do before we accept an item. 

Since our founding in 2014, we’ve been committed to 100% non-GMO products (those made without genetically modified organisms). One way we make this easier is by prioritizing organic options, which are inherently non-GMO. Organic products are grown with farming practices that enhance soil quality, promote biodiversity, avoid synthetic fertilizers, and conserve clean water, making them better for the planet and the people who grow them. 

Safety is also key when it comes to trusted products, and sometimes the ingredients we restrict are just as important as the ones we seek out. “In some cases, it’s what [members] won’t see,” Hechler says. “We started with a fairly small list of unacceptable ingredients. This has now evolved into much more robust standards that have come about from reviewing hundreds of ingredients and conducting further research into additional ingredient restrictions to ensure products are formulated for the safety of both our members and the environment.” Today, our list of restricted ingredients surpasses 1,000 and includes artificial flavors, high-fructose corn syrup, synthetic nitrates, nitrites, sweeteners, and colors, antibiotics and growth hormones, and parabens — and the list keeps growing as we continue to learn more. 

Try these expert-picked products made with trusted ingredients: 

Thrive Market Organic Classic Marinara Sauce

Woodstock Organic Whole Strawberries

MaryRuth’s Kids Organic Multivitamin Gummies

Dr. Bronner’s Organic Peppermint Toothpaste

ACURE Brightening Facial Scrub

#2 Ethical Sourcing: How It’s Made

Ethically sourced products are made by companies that follow honest business practices, pay and treat workers fairly, and provide a safe workplace. Ethical sourcing is especially important for products that come from high-risk supply chains, like cacao for chocolate or coconuts for coconut oil and coconut milk.

One way to verify that a product meets a certain standard is through a third-party certification. Here are a few examples of seals we look for:

• Fair Trade, which verifies that a product is made with practices that back price guarantees, provide premiums to support community development and environmentally friendly farming, and never employ child labor. 
• Leaping Bunny, a beauty certification that ensures products are never tested on animals at any stage of development. 
• Global Animal Partnership (G.A.P.) for humanely raised meat and poultry and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for sustainably caught seafood.  

We prioritize trusted certifications for all of the products we carry, but when it comes to the hundreds of essentials in Thrive Market brands, we take our commitment to ethical sourcing even further. “Ethical sourcing is foundational to our Owned Brand approach,” Waldoch says. “We work closely with our suppliers to ensure fair labor practices, transparent sourcing, and respect for both people and planet—especially in categories with historically high-risk supply chains like cacao, coconut, and coffee. Our goal is to create products that support better practices throughout the supply chain.”

Try these expert-picked, ethically sourced products:  

Thrive Market Regeneratively Grown Organic Coconut Milk 

Thrive Market Grass-Fed Organic Beef Top Sirloin Steaks

Thrive Market Spice Jars

Babo Botanicals Sensitive Baby Fragrance Free Shampoo & Wash 

Alaffia Everyday Coconut Fair Trade Face Cleanser

#3 Planet Positive: Our Environmental Impact 

A product’s impact on our planet can be just as important as its impact on your health. As the leading online-only retailer of regenerative products, we seek out products grown with farming practices that minimize greenhouse gases, enrich soil, and promote biodiversity. From ancient grains to olive oil, we’re proud to carry more than 300 regenerative products at Thrive Market, and we’re always working to add more. 

Our commitment to sustainability extends beyond the products we carry and into the practices our company follows. All three Thrive Market warehouses are TRUE Certified for Zero Waste, meaning we recycle, compost, or reuse at least 90% of materials that enter our doors. To send members’ orders, we use sustainable packaging (like 100% recyclable and reusable materials) and carbon-neutral, ground shipping only. If you see any plastic packaging from Thrive Market brands or plastic shipping materials in your order, it’s Plastic Neutral Certified with rePurpose Global, meaning we measure how much plastic we create and recover that same amount of plastic from nature.

Try these expert-picked, planet-positive products: 

SIMPLi Regenerative Organic Tri-Color Quinoa

Philosopher Foods Sprouted Almond Butter, Naked Creamy

f.a.e. by Thrive Market Instant Refresh Face Wipes

Everyone Hand Soap, Meyer Lemon & Mandarin

Weleda Skin Food Original Ultra-Rich Cream

#4 On a Mission: Contributing to the Greater Good

Since our founding in 2014, we’ve been driven by our mission to make healthy and sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone. Not only does our mission guide the top-quality products we carry based on those values, but it also drives the sustainability and food equality causes we stand for. 

We know our mission isn’t only about us, and to make a real change in the grocery industry toward democratizing healthy living, it will take the work of many. We look for mission-driven partners dedicated to the same healthy future we’re striving for, whether that’s ALOHA’s work supporting local farms in Hawaii or Humble’s low-waste personal care products that come in plastic-free, biodegradable packaging. 

Try these expert-picked products on a mission:  

Thrive Market Organic Rolled Oats

ALOHA Special Edition Protein Bar, Pa’akai

Seven Sundays Oat Protein Cereal, Super Fruity

Humble Deodorant, Moroccan Rose

Ursa Major Golden Hour Recovery Cream

GOODONYA Hydrate Electrolyte & Mineral Powder

#5 Tasted & Tested: Making Sure “We Love It!”  

A product might be the most naturally made, ethically produced, and sustainable option we can find, but if our team doesn’t love it, we won’t carry it — simple as that. That means Thrive Market Brand and Category Managers vet every item before we accept it, making sure it’s an absolute must-have for our members. 

That purpose-built approach is most evident with the carefully produced items in Thrive Market brands. “Every product is tasted and tested, with each flavor, ingredient, scent, and pack size carefully selected with our members’ needs and preferences in mind,” Waldoch says. “Each item is thoughtfully developed to deliver high quality, ethical values, and fair prices for our members.” 

Try these expert-tasted and -tested products: 

Thrive Market Gluten-Free Banana Muffin & Bread Mix

Soom Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Tahini

Rosey by Thrive Market All-Purpose Cleaner, Fresh Lemon 

Mad Hippie Vitamin C Serum 

Beekeeper’s Naturals Propolis Immune Support Throat Spray 

What’s Next for Thrive Market’s Standards

The reality of our standards is that the work never ends. There’s always a new ingredient to research and a new product to vet. To maintain the highest standards in the industry, Hechler explains that our process “will continue to evolve as we are continuously monitoring industry and scientific research on ingredient safety” and that we will continue to seek out supply partners who are “not just content to meet [our standards], but evolve them.” 

While science and safety are key to setting our standards, our selection always comes back to what’s best for our members — and we often get that answer directly from the source. “Our members are incredibly vocal,” Lane says. “They will write to us if they have a question about our standards, and sometimes those questions will actually spur debates for our team on: ‘Should this be restricted or not?’ While I’d like to say all of our standards are created by us, that’s not the case. Sometimes our members will bring things to our attention that, frankly, are important and will impact our standards. We love that direct communication with our members. They’re a very discerning bunch!”