Giant Eagle’s Nature’s Basket Brand Now Responsibly Sourced

As part of Giant Eagle’s continuing commitment to sustainability, the grocer has relaunched its Nature’s Basket private brand. This time around, all items in the product line offer responsibly sourced, high-quality ingredients at affordable prices. 

“We’re committed to helping our customers to realize meaningful value through our Own Brands program, and I am particularly excited to reintroduce our Nature’s Basket line to our customers,” said Kasey Sheffer, VP of own brands at Giant Eagle. “When a customer purchases any Nature’s Basket item, we want them to feel good about the price, quality of the ingredients, and the environmental and social impact of the product.”

To ensure transparency of its private label products, Giant Eagle has teamed with independent sustainability intelligence company HowGood to evaluate the environmental and social impact of each item in the Nature’s Basket line and provide a comprehensive sustainability rating.

“Through our Nature’s Basket brand, we’re excited to offer customers a reimagined product line with an enhanced focus on sustainability,” explained Cara Mercil, Giant Eagle’s director of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. “We’ve taken an innovative approach to strengthening the Nature’s Basket brand, both through our partnership with HowGood and our continued work to reduce waste through the development of product packaging that is more reusable, recyclable and biodegradable.” 

Products that achieve HowGood Ratings of Good, Great, and Best have an overall environmental and social sustainability impact better than more than 70%, 85% and 95% of food products assessed by HowGood, respectively. About 70% of Nature’s Basket items have earned a HowGood rating of Good, Great or Best.

When ordering online, Giant Eagle customers can review the HowGood ratings of Nature’s Basket items listed under “Product Details” on each product’s page. HowGood ratings will also appear on in-store signage.

“We are delighted to partner with Giant Eagle to provide comprehensive, unified sustainability communications to consumers,” said Alexander Gillett, CEO of Stone Ridge, N.Y.-based HowGood. “Today’s shoppers are more committed than ever to supporting brands that have a positive impact on our planet. Displaying HowGood’s easy-to-understand sustainability ratings brings Giant Eagle to the forefront of a global movement empowering consumers to live more sustainably.”

HowGood calculates product sustainability ratings using eight core impact metrics: greenhouse-gas emissions, biodiversity, processing, water usage, labor risk, land use, soil health, and animal welfare.

Additionally, all Nature’s Basket meat products have received third-party animal welfare certifications, and the brand’s products with plant-based ingredients are made only with non-GMO ingredients.

Giant Eagle operates approximately 480 stores throughout western Pennsylvania, north central Ohio, northern West Virginia, Maryland and Indiana. The Pittsburgh-based company is No. 40 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named the company one of its Top 10 Most Sustainable Grocers.