Forager Elly Truesdell Whole Foods Market [MUSIC PLAYING] [Text on screen reads “Whole Foods Market has local foragers across the country. Elly is one of them. ELLY TRUESDELL: The local forager for Whole Foods Market is truly a resource for small local businesses who have never worked in this large retail format before and they really need a guiding hand, they need someone to work with them, to come in and be a real success in this major, major format. Whole Foods Market is super committed to local vendors and I think that's because they are making the best quality product around. It's coming from closer to you, it's coming from the season's best dairies and produce, et cetera. On the one hand, we're dedicating ourselves to flavor, but we're also helping and supporting, really building up these businesses who may have not otherwise have the chance to. Foragers are all over every region. We're visiting meat and livestock farmers, we're visiting dairies, we're visiting packaged product facilities, so we're really hitting all terrains and we're in every part of the country. It's pretty neat. My job is definitely outside of the 9:00 to 5:00. It's outside of normal office hours and certainly brings me to every venue you can imagine where there's food available. My favorite forager visits are generally to farms, whether that's a produce farm, or meat, dairy. Just love visiting the place where something's being grown and it's the raw product. And the people who are growing that food are almost always the most passionate. They know so much about whatever it is that they're growing and it's just a really neat thing to see. When I'm looking for products, I'm really looking across the board. I'm looking for fresh produce, I'm looking for baked items, I'm looking for prepared foods, every category that's coming locally and I get to look at. One thing that they really need to have in common is that they need to meet our quality standards, they have to have certain ingredients in them to even enter our stores, and they really need to have a story. They need to have some meaning behind them. We need to feel connected to the story and how they're making those products. I feel really lucky to be the local forager. There's so much culinary creativity going on. There are so many artisans, there are so many passionate people who are making different products from coffees to multi-ethnic breads, and so I feel really lucky that I get to meet all of those people, I get to taste their foods, and I get to see how they're making it. The most satisfying part of my job I think is that I'm getting to help people all day long. I find a huge personal pride and excitement when a vendor comes to our stores and succeeds and does really well. It's such a fun job. I'm helping people, but I'm also getting to taste amazing foods. This is definitely one of, if not the best job at Whole Foods Market. It's amazing.