Is Our Sauerkraut Organic?

Short answer: no. We do not have organic certification, so we do not use the word about our own jars.

It is a better question than most, though, because where the vegetable came from genuinely matters more in a ferment than in almost any other food. Fermentation is not something we add. The bacteria that turn cabbage into sauerkraut are already living on the leaves when the cabbage is cut — we only provide salt and the conditions for them to work. The surface of the vegetable is the starting culture, which makes what has been on that surface part of the process rather than a detail you rinse off.

So the question is fair, and the answer is still no. Organic is a regulated claim in the United States: there is a certifier, an audit and paperwork behind it. We have not been through that. A word with a legal definition attached is not one to borrow because it sounds right, and we would rather say nothing than say something we cannot show you.

Worth separating two things that often get sold as one. Organic describes how the vegetable was grown. It says nothing about whether the jar is alive. Most certified organic sauerkraut sitting on an unrefrigerated shelf has been pasteurized — heated until nothing living remains, so it can keep at room temperature. Our difference is somewhere else, and it is one we can demonstrate: this was never heated, and it is still fermenting when it reaches you.

What is in the jar: cabbage, sea salt, and the vegetable or spice the flavor is named after. No vinegar, no sugar, no preservatives, no starter culture, no colour.

Five flavors, all $16.95, fermented in glass in small batches and shipped cold.