Providing Texans with Quality Produce and a Mindful Footprint
A better environment—and better health—starts at the root! Your favorite fruits and vegetables are a direct product of our shared natural resources: Land, water, and air. So, it’s important for H-E-B to work with farmers & growers who are good stewards of our environment. And Texas has a big impact on the environment– we have by far the most farms of any U.S. state!
Because we know our fellow Texans value the environment as much as we do, H-E-B prioritizes offering an abundant selection of seasonal, local, and organic choices at our everyday low prices. Look for the H-E-B Texas Roots™ produce & floral, H-E-B Organics®, and H-E-B Kindly Cultivated™ brands at your H-E-B! Each brand features products with unique, sustainable characteristics intended to help manage environmental impact.
What is Sustainable Produce?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines sustainability as providing safe and nutritious food for all, providing fair wages for farmers and those working across the agriculture system, and conserving natural resources for the benefit of current and future populations.
H-E-B’s goal is to minimize the environmental impact of our products, while providing fair pay to partner growers and meeting Texans’ current & growing food needs. One way we do this is through our commitment to source from Texas farms & businesses first. This not only helps strengthen Texan communities by employing our neighbors with good pay, but we also minimize the miles traveled from farms to your H-E-B than sourcing out of state.
Texas’s climate is ideal for many fruits and veggies, but not all varieties grow well here. In these instances, H-E-B sources outside of Texas to provide you with the freshest, peak quality products from locations where fewer resources are used in their production. If our Texas growers worked against what Mother Nature gives us to grow an item out of season, it could require more natural & human resources, such as energy, labor, and water.
About H-E-B Texas Roots™
We bring the best of Texas farms to Texas tables. H-E-B Texas Roots™ has over 100 local produce and over 40 floral products sourced exclusively from over 35 Texan cities and counties, directly supporting the communities H-E-B serves. Not only does this farm-to-store approach help the Texas economy, but sourcing products in-state typically requires less transportation & refrigeration than shipping from farther out-of-state destinations.
The farmers who partner with us for H-E-B Texas Roots™ work with Texas’s unique climate to provide you the quality & assortment you’ve come to expect from your neighborhood H-E-B! With our milder winters, rainy springs, and long summers, much of Texas is ideally suited for farming. Farmers in South Texas, where winter temperatures average 60-70°, can often grow certain produce & flower varietals year-round.
We source from all over the state. Some of H-E-B Texas Roots™ best-loved items include:
- Cantaloupes from Pecos
- Strawberries from Poteet
- Potatoes and pumpkins from Dalhart
- Greens and onions from the Rio Grande Valley
About H-E-B Organics
We offer 83 H-E-B Organics® produce SKUs to give Texans more delicious, organic choices at affordable prices.
All H-E-B Organics® products are from USDA Certified Organic growers. The USDA requires organic certified farmers and processors to use natural processes & materials in growth and production, which help contribute to:
- Soil, crop, and livestock nutrition
- Pest and weed management to avoid pesticides
- Conservation of biological diversity
Some organic crop producers, for example, build soil quality by adding compost, which provides nutrients for plants to absorb. They use cover crops to help protect the soil from wind and water erosion and practice crop rotation to interrupt insect life cycles, fix nitrogen levels, and increase farm biodiversity.
Why does biodiversity matter? Watch this video from our partner, The Nature Conservancy.
About H-E-B Kindly Cultivated™ Produce
Our newest produce brand, H-E-B Kindly Cultivated™, launched summer 2023 with a variety of salad bases. H-E-B Kindly Cultivated™ focuses on produce that is grown using C.E.A, or Controlled Environment Agriculture. This sustainably focused method leverages advanced, indoor, resource-efficient farming practices to produce high quality produce. C.E.A. uses the latest technology to monitor water, lighting, plant nutrients, and ventilation to provide an optimal growing environment for produce and flowers.
C.E.A. can also be called:
- Indoor farming
- Vertical farming
- Greenhouse grown
- Hydroponic
- Aquaponic
C.E.A. is a great complementary growing method to supplement traditional agriculture. Its benefits include:
- A controlled environment that reduces the impact of weather
- A reduction or removal of the need for pesticides and herbicides
- Year-round growing & availability
- Less water and land usage vs. traditional agriculture
We’re proud to offer H-E-B Kindly Cultivated™ salad bases as our first items because they’re grown in Temple, Texas. It therefore typically travels fewer miles to H-E-B warehouses than salad bases from the United States’ primary growing regions in California & Arizona. All of the greens are also grown using an average of 90% less water than traditionally grown agriculture!
We understand that sustainability is bigger than just farming practices: That’s why your H-E-B Kindly Cultivated™ salad bases come in a 100% PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled) plastic tub. The packaging includes a prominent How2Recycle icon on the front explaining how to discard – just be sure to check your local guidelines to confirm recyclability in your area.
Look for H-E-B Kindly Cultivated™ organic items such as Green Leaf & Baby Romaine Lettuce Blend, Baby Arugula, Spring Mix, Green Leaf, and Butter Lettuce at your neighborhood H-E-B!
About H-E-B Best in Season
H-E-B’s committed to local-first sourcing, but we do source globally for the freshest in-season fruits, veggies, and flowers. Our produce team works closely with suppliers outside of Texas to source the Best in Season for you.
Apples and cherries, for instance, typically grow better outside of the Lone Star State. While sourcing these products does require longer-distance transportation, H-E-B’s Texas-first sourcing approach helps cut down on the need for produce grown outside of TX.
Bringing the best in fresh to Texans since 1905, we pride ourselves in offering you the highest quality assortment. We highlight seasonal, limited time-only products with Best in Season signage in-store, so you know you’re getting produce that’s at its peak of flavor.
Supplier Spotlights: Best in Season Produce at H-E-B
Rainier Fruit in Washington state is one of our trusted apple suppliers. Their multi-pronged sustainability initiative involves:
- An extensive soil amendment program, which adds materials to soil that help improve the quality of the dirt.
- Designated pollinator habitats at every orchard to encourage pollinating insects (i.e. bees & butterflies) to live there.
- Drip irrigation systems that can reduce water usage by up to one-third.
Another Best in Season favorite supplier is H-E-B exclusive, Hood River Cherry Company. Oregon’s weather is ideal for growing cherries, and we’re lucky to partner with this woman-led, family-owned orchard. Their high-elevation farm produces some of the sweetest, largest cherries you’ll ever taste.
Hood River Cherry Company’s fruit is tree-ripened and hand-picked at night, to put less stress on the trees—and more sweet in the cherry! Their seven delicious cherry varieties travel straight from the orchard to our Texan customers each summer.
What’s Next for H-E-B Produce?
Texas’s population is growing—and H-E-B’s growing along with it. As we grow, H-E-B will continue to explore new ways to help conserve & protect Texas for generations to come while providing Texans with affordable, delicious fresh produce. It’s a great (and tasty!) time to be a Texan!
