On this very special episode, we traveled to Ondarroa, a fishing port in the Basque Country of northern Spain, and followed a team of Whole Foods Market buyers and sourcing experts to find out how they interact with partners at the source—in this case, the legendary Spanish tinned seafood producer Ortiz. Joining us was AnaMaria Friede, who oversees grocery merchandising strategy and has spent two decades helping to advance Whole Foods Quality Standards. Category Merchant Julia Merid lives inside the canned seafood aisle and works directly with producers on everything from the fish itself to the packaging to how the story gets told. And Carrie Brownstein has spent 25 years researching and writing the actual standards that govern what Whole Foods can and can’t sell—she’s the person who established what “sustainable wild-caught” actually means and what it doesn’t. At the center of it all: Conservas Ortiz, a fifth-generation, family-owned company working the Basque coast since 1891.
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