Founded in 1976, Iowa-based Frontier Co-op is a leader in organic and natural herbs, spices, and essential oils. As a co-operative owned by wholesale customers that buy and sell its products, Frontier Co-op sources hundreds of different botanicals and oils from over 175 suppliers in 50 countries and sells products under three consumer-facing brands: Frontier Co-op, Simply Organic, and Aura Cacia. Established in 2007, Well Earth, Frontier Co-op’s responsible sourcing program, helps its suppliers – many of which are SMEs, small-farmer cooperatives, or social enterprises – to improve the quality and efficiency of their products and operations, and explore diversified income opportunities for farming families and workers. In addition to the challenges of navigating the market and managing food-safe operations, Frontier Co-op’s suppliers often face hurdles associated with increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, farmer relationship management and side-selling, pesticide residues and drift, and ensuring compliance with international ethical labor standards. Well Earth helps Frontier Co-op’s suppliers navigate these issues and, through a process of continuous improvement, identify and close performance gaps. In 2018, Frontier Co-op partnered with the USAID Cooperative Development Program (CDP) to implement the Safe Processing in Cooperative Enterprise (SPICE) project. The goal of SPICE is to drive value-added processes and opportunities back to source to increase economic opportunities in these communities, and create value that can be reinvested in both community and business building activities. This project started with our partners in Sri Lanka, and has since grown to include two other projects in India and Guatemala.

View their website for more information: Frontier Coop – Home