Jeremiah McElwee

A twenty-five year veteran of the Natural Products industry, Jeremiah has been on all sides of the business and supply chain, literally from seed to shelf. Jeremiah served for 7 years as the Executive Global Coordinator for the Beauty, Apparel & Wellness categories at Whole Foods Market. During his tenure, he pioneered multiple, industry-changing, quality standard initiatives including natural beauty standards, organic labeling requirements for personal care, and the largest ever sustainable packaging guidelines for a major retailer. Jeremiah is also a passionate advocate for and co-creator of Fair Trade standards that changed the natural products landscape. In addition to developing hundreds of best selling branded products that currently line natural food store shelves and managing the Whole Foods & 365 private label brands, he also helped Dr. Andrew Weil develop his branded product platform. Since leaving Whole Foods Market in February 2013, Jeremiah launched GIST, a think tank and natural products consulting agency helping create sustainable solutions, and consciously sourced, market-driven products, and is also working on launching several innovative brands including: Simply Fair Skin Care and others. Jeremiah also serves as the SVP of Merchandising + Private Label for Thrive Market (www.thrivemarket.com ), the largest retailer of Non-GMO foods in the USA. As part of that role, he oversees Thrive's private label product development as well. To date, Thrive Market has launched 460 private label products across all categories with another 500+ in development. When not working as an eco-superhero, he can be found in the Texas Hill Country practicing hot vinyasa yoga, reading children's books to his daughters, or checking the surf report and planning his next escape to the coast.