Our Ingredients Policy
This policy applies to all food related goods and services offered by earthshine.
Packaged foods sold by Earthshine are accurately labeled on the ingredients to indicate the organic status of each ingredient.
We print most of our back labels in house, on a batch by batch basis. Therefore ingredient labels are updated on an ongoing basis to ensure accuracy at all times.
Organic
- We always prefer to use organic ingredients in our products.
- Practically, this means a large proportion of our fresh ingredients, like kale used in our kale chips and carrots for our Botanical Bacon are usually certified organic or biodynamically grown.
- We also use uncertified, but organically grown produce and sometimes organic produce grown in our own Earthshine farming project.
- Some ingredients we consider ‘low risk’ we will routinely use non organic where the price and/or availability of organic is currently prohibitive, eg. Cashew nuts.
- Some ingredients we consider ‘high risk’ we will only ever use certified organic, eg. Tamari sauce, made from soy.
Raw
- We do not cook any dishes or part of dishes, we don’t even have cookers in our kitchens.
- Any dehydration of foods takes place at around or below 47 degrees celsius, to preserve nutrients.
- However, we do use some bought in high quality ingredients that may not be 100% raw or even raw at all, such as Cacao which is roasted.
Local
- We always buy as much of our produce as possible from local organic farms around Cape Town.
- Some produce comes from friends and families organic gardens too, also from the Earthshine farming project.
- Local fruit and vegetable wholesalers and suppliers are utilised too.
- We strive to not use fresh ingredients that have been airfreighted into SA at the cost of the environment, eg. broccoli florets from Kenya. When we do use imported ingredients we try to ensure they have been shipped in on boats at a much lower environmental cost eg. imported nuts.
Seasonal
- We love seasonal food for lots of reasons and we do our utmost to create dishes/products with the flow of the seasons, this means the food is:
- Healthier, as its more likely to be fresh, local and ripe.
- Environmentally sustainable, fewer food miles, less storage, less energy used.
- More economic, for all the above reasons, seasonal food offers better value.
No Animal Products
- We never use meat, fish or eggs in our kitchens.
- We never use any dairy products in our kitchens.
Gluten
- We do not use any wheat seed based ingredients, we do not store wheat seed or wheat seed based ingredients in our kitchen.
- We do however use wheatgrass powders in some product/dishes. Wheatgrass is a gluten free product, although there is a small possibility of wheat seed contamination during its production.
- Oats are used in our kitchen, we only use whole grain or rolled oats. Oats are a gluten free food but are frequently contaminated with gluten from wheat, unfortunately we cannot ensure our oats for be free of gluten/wheat contamination. Where oats are used it will be indicated.
Allergens
- Allergens used in our kitchen include:
- Tree nuts. Cashew, almond, brazil, hazel, macadamia, pecans, walnuts, pistachio, pine nuts.
- Soy. In the form of certified organic Tamari sauce, Locally fermented organic Tempeh and Miso paste.
- Oats, possibility of gluten contamination.
- Sesame seeds.
- Poppy Seeds.
Refined Ingredients
- We never use refined grains, oils or sweeteners.
- Instead we do use whole seeds, nuts and grains, organic virgin cold pressed oils, mostly olive (We source direct from SA olive farms), whole food sweeteners like dates or organic coconut blossom sugar.
Artificial Ingredients
- We do not use artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavourings, added MSG, colourants, or stabilisers.
- In our chocolate production we use an emulsifier.We have sourced high quality Sunflower Lecithin to use instead of GMO Soy Lecithin, more commonly used.
Genetically Modified
- We never, ever knowingly use GMO foods in anything. With high risk foods such as soy, we only use certified organic such as Tamari sauce or fermented Tempeh.
- We actively spend time supporting non-GMO companies and educating on the dangers of GMO foods.