Provenance is at the heart of everything we do, informing not only the product choices we make and the growers and producers that we invite to join our community, but is itself the ‘essence’ that drives the ethics and values of our business and our passionate commitment to authenticity and transparency.
PROVENANCE ASSURED
WHAT PROVENANCE ASSURED MEANS
Provenance Assured by Provenance Hub means that you can be sure where the foods we offer have come from, who has produced them, why they’re doing it, and how they have been grown or produced.
When we created Provenance Hub, we knew we needed to offer our customers not just the best tasting foods from across the UK and Europe, but to also verify their authenticity, with complete transparency in the production methods used to make them. We also knew that we were not, and did not want to become or claim to be, a certification body, so we developed our two distinct Provenance Assured and Provenance Assured Plus+ marks to inform our customers and set clear benchmarks for our producer community around the standards and requirements we expect them to meet.
PROVENANCE ASSURED vs PROVENANCE ASSURED PLUS+
Provenance Assured is the minimum requirement that every product from every producer must meet to be offered for sale on Provenance Hub. Internal processes are carried out by our Producer Services Team and include checks, vetting and verification against a number of criteria to establish the authenticity of the product and its production. Only once these checks have been completed do we then award the Provenance Assured mark and offer the products for sale.
Provenance Assured Plus+ is for those growers and producers who are already working with relevant external, independent or international certification bodies. For these producers and their products, we award their products the Provenance Assured Plus+ mark and include details of the independent certifications achieved in the product details ‘certification’ section on our site.
As part of our commitment to transparency in everything we do, we are working to standardise how we display and share this information with our customers. We have prioritised work to offer enhanced information displayed for each producer and product on our site, which will be deployed over the coming months.
PROVENANCE ASSURED
BY PROVENANCE HUB
Rooted in our passion for W3H1, we work with producers to verify and challenge the Who, Where, Why and How for each of their products. We verify these alongside each claim that they make, such as where its ingredients are from or how have been grown, where it may have been processed and by whom etc. At the same time, we complete our basic ‘business fundamentals’ checks which ensure adherence to local business and insurance requirements, health and safety standards, as well as local food hygiene standards.
PROVENANCE ASSURED PLUS+
BY PROVENANCE HUB
Whilst Provenance Assured by Provenance Hub sets the minimum standard for the foods we sell and the producers and growers we work with, many producers are already working with relevant national and internationally recognised bodies and certification schemes. These include the likes of the Soil Association for Organic certification in the UK, and other IFOAM accredited bodies across Europe. For these growers and producers and their products, we award the Provenance Assured Plus+ mark.
PROVENANCE ASSURED
VERIFICATION PROCESS
WHO: We need to know who we are working with and the people that run the business.
We validate the producers’ legal personality, product liability insurance, is a legitimate trading business and is compliant with local health and safety and food hygiene laws.
WHERE: We need to know that the products are authentic and as described.
We verify and validate all growing and production claims, which normally include site visits by our team, to understand where ingredients are from or how they are sourced, where production takes place, and that capacity is as expected.
WHY: We need absolute transparency.
We are looking to establish that the grower or producer shares our commitment to sustainability, authenticity, transparency and ecological wellbeing. We are looking for clear documented processes and strategies that we can witness in action.
HOW: We need to be able to share with our customers each product’s provenance story
We understand in detail how each product is made, and its growing and production techniques. We are looking for traditional, heritage, small scale production, typically tied to the producers region. We will also look to confirm that we are not seeing mass production, chemically grown, industrialised, infinite capacity or white label scenarios.
PROVENANCE ASSURED PLUS +
ADDITIONAL VERIFICATION
In addition to all of the checks and verification processes for Provenance Assured, producers may be working with relevant nationally and internationally recognised certification bodies that verify provenance, authenticity and commitment to organic or bio, such as the Soil Association in the UK. For these producers, we award the Provenance Assured Plus mark on a product-by-product basis and include details of the independent certification at product level in our product descriptions.
