Seed to Seal®
Standards Far Beyond The Standard
Millions around the world have discovered the benefits of pure essential oils, derived naturally from plants. We’re committed to establishing and maintaining the ultimate, industry-leading standard in essential oil products. For us, the non-negotiable benchmarks for delivering a product that our customers can feel great about are multifaceted and exacting. We’re proud to offer an extensive line of essential oils and essential oil-infused, plant-based products that represent the best of nature—through the standards of our Seed to Seal program.
Young Living embraces a rigorous quality control standard to help ensure our products meet strict specifications. Seed to Seal is our set of standards that helps ensure that with every pure essential oil and Young Living product your family uses, you’re enjoying the benefits of our global resources, industry leadership, and over two decades of innovation. The result? A pristine final product that you know has been created with conscientious Sourcing, Science, and Standards—the three pillars of Seed to Seal.
As the leader of the essential oils movement, Young Living is paving the way for every other essential oil company to improve processes that protect our planet and ensure the highest quality standards.
Watch this video to learn more about how Young Living is driven by a desire to serve the global community and to inspire our employees and customers around the world.
Young Living embraces a rigorous quality control standard to help ensure our products meet strict specifications. Seed to Seal is our set of standards that helps ensure that with every pure essential oil and Young Living product your family uses, you’re enjoying the benefits of our global resources, industry leadership, and over two decades of innovation. The result? A pristine final product that you know has been created with conscientious Sourcing, Science, and Standards—the three pillars of Seed to Seal.
As the leader of the essential oils movement, Young Living is paving the way for every other essential oil company to improve processes that protect our planet and ensure the highest quality standards.
Watch this video to learn more about how Young Living is driven by a desire to serve the global community and to inspire our employees and customers around the world.
Sourcing
Not all essential oils are created equally. Young Living will never knowingly compromise by adding synthetics, contaminants, or cheap fillers, or by using unethical production practices. Young Living sources products from carefully vetted corporate-owned farms, partner farms, and Seed to Seal-certified suppliers and testing them extensively. If our exhaustive tests show that a product doesn’t meet our standards, we don’t buy it, or we reject the batch.
Partnership Principles
Our oils are sourced from our corporate-owned farms, partner farms, and Seed to Seal-certified suppliers. This empowers us to source conscientiously and with sensitivity to local communities and ecosystems. We vet and select our like-minded suppliers according to five principles: Established Relationships, Seed to Seal Specifications, Binding Agreements, Stringent Testing, and Ongoing Audits. Learn more
here.
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Formulation and Production
Our superior oils and ingredients deserve facilities and formulas to match. Our expanded Distribution Center in Spanish Fork, Utah, is a state-of-the-art facility, where we use best manufacturing practices to test essential oils, ingredients, and products and to formulate and manufacture the innovative offerings you love.
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Third-Party Substantiation
We choose to work only with partners we trust; but even with that trust, we engage third-party global experts to validate that our standards are being upheld. This helps to ensure that inferior or unethically sourced ingredients don’t find their way to your door.
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Sourcing Standard
The Young Living Essential Oils Sourcing Standard helps ensure a high level of quality and authenticity of essential oils while encouraging responsible practices of production and processing at all stages in the supply chain.
Young Living Essential Oils, is working with SCS Global Services (SCS) – a global expert in environmental and sustainability certification, standards development, responsible sourcing, and business solutions – on the details of the development and implementation of the Young Living Essential Oils Sourcing Standard.
Supply Chain: The Young Living Essential Oils Sourcing Standard applies to all stages of the Young Living essential oil supply chain, including farms, wildcrafting operations, processing facilities (e.g., distilleries), as well as Young Living-owned facilities. It applies to Young Living corporate-owned farms, partner farms, and Seed to Seal-certified suppliers.
Sourcing Standard Details: Young Living and all of our partners must meet the highest standards in:
• Authentication
• Agricultural Practices
• Harvesting & Collection
• Extraction & Distillation Practices
• Testing
• Traceability
• Storage & Bottling
Young Living Essential Oils, is working with SCS Global Services (SCS) – a global expert in environmental and sustainability certification, standards development, responsible sourcing, and business solutions – on the details of the development and implementation of the Young Living Essential Oils Sourcing Standard.
Supply Chain: The Young Living Essential Oils Sourcing Standard applies to all stages of the Young Living essential oil supply chain, including farms, wildcrafting operations, processing facilities (e.g., distilleries), as well as Young Living-owned facilities. It applies to Young Living corporate-owned farms, partner farms, and Seed to Seal-certified suppliers.
Sourcing Standard Details: Young Living and all of our partners must meet the highest standards in:
• Authentication
• Agricultural Practices
• Harvesting & Collection
• Extraction & Distillation Practices
• Testing
• Traceability
• Storage & Bottling
Science
Science is the cornerstone of what we do at Young Living. Our trained scientific staff employs cutting-edge methods to develop new products, as well as to help ensure the quality of all of our products. Both our D. Gary Young Research Institute and Quality team, work in state-of-the-art labs with some of the most advanced scientific equipment available.
Industry-Leading Science
While our product quality starts in the fields, it’s proven in our state-of-the-art labs. Our rigorous R&D and Quality program is staffed with more than 50 highly trained, highly skilled scientists who use advanced testing methods to help ensure that products meet our lofty standards.
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Third-Party Testing
Product testing doesn’t take place exclusively within our two in-house labs. Young Living also works with more than a dozen of the world’s leading, independent, and accredited labs with highly skilled and trained scientists who specialize in advanced product testing.
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Innovative Product Development
Our R&D team helps Young Living employ cutting-edge science to develop unique products that lead the industry. This team also performs state-of-the-art research to support product claims and uses. With purity and efficacy being paramount to Young Living, the R&D team routinely develops new testing methods to help ensure the quality of our products.
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Stringent, Unyielding Quality
Quality starts at the farm and is proven in our labs. Through our stringent, unyielding quality benchmarks, we are able to identify the most pure, genuine, and effective ingredients.
Our quality control team uses a battery of physical, chemical, and microbiological scientific tests to measure the exact components and properties of our essential oils. Each test is repeated numerous times during the quality process. Testing begins at our farms and continues all the way through the final stages prior to shipment to our customers.
Our team of highly trained, highly skilled scientists perform state-of-the-art tests, including but not limited to:
• Densitometry
• Viscometry
• Refractometry
• Polarimetry
• Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS)
• Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES)
• Gas Chromatography (GC)
• High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
• Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
• Automated Micro-Enumeration
• Disintegration
• pH
• Microscopy
• Combustibility
• Flash Point
• Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS)
• Chiral Chromatography
• Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS)
Our quality control team uses a battery of physical, chemical, and microbiological scientific tests to measure the exact components and properties of our essential oils. Each test is repeated numerous times during the quality process. Testing begins at our farms and continues all the way through the final stages prior to shipment to our customers.
Our team of highly trained, highly skilled scientists perform state-of-the-art tests, including but not limited to:
• Densitometry
• Viscometry
• Refractometry
• Polarimetry
• Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS)
• Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES)
• Gas Chromatography (GC)
• High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
• Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
• Automated Micro-Enumeration
• Disintegration
• pH
• Microscopy
• Combustibility
• Flash Point
• Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS)
• Chiral Chromatography
• Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS)
While our labs can conduct all of these tests, we routinely use our third-party labs to supplement our internal testing. Each of these labs have highly skilled and trained scientists.
Standards
Part of our stewardship is to do business responsibly—from sustainably sourcing plants, to uplifting local communities, and to complying with environmental and other laws. Through our Global Compliance Program, we seek to ensure that Young Living offers pure products that you can feel confident are contributing to the greater good.
Top-Tier Standards
Inexpensive essential oils are often synthetic, adulterated, or unethically sourced, which is why we choose partners who produce pure essential oils and ingredients ethically and legally. This practice sets a top-tier standard for sustainability.
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Sustainable Compliance Program
As part of our commitment to running our business ethically and legally, from sourcing and producing our essential oils, to marketing and selling our products, we have developed a global compliance program that outlines a series of mandatory policies and guidelines. The following list includes some of these policies and guidelines that are covered by the Global Compliance Program:
• Young Living Code of Conduct • Young Living Employee Handbook • Young Living Policies and Procedures • Young Living Anticorruption Policy • Young Living Environmental Compliance Policy • Lacey Act Compliance Program • Young Living Travel and Expense Policy • Direct Selling Association (DSA) Code of Ethics |
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Industry Green Leader
Our efforts go beyond a conscientious supply chain. Young Living’s commitment to sustainable business includes reforestation of harvested trees; recycling at Young Living offices; and the construction of our brand-new, LEED-certified headquarters in Lehi, Utah.
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Lacey Act Compliance Program
Not only is our Lacey Act Compliance Program comprehensive, it is also the first in the essential oils industry that has been reviewed and accepted by the government. It is the gold standard for compliance programs, and we are proud to have gone above and beyond any of our competitors to establish it. We are engaging top legal experts around the world to keep us advised of the most current laws, as well as to inform us how to appropriately apply them to our most important business needs.
Our team has been working collaboratively with our corporate-owned farms, partner farms, Seed to Seal-certified suppliers, and the government for more than a year to develop this new program.
We also continually work with environmental experts around the world to keep us advised on the protection of delicate landscapes, and plants..
The Lacey Act Compliance Program consists of five general steps that when followed will help ensure that our essential oil products and partners comply with all laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we do business.
These five steps are:
• Supplier Education
Provide all suppliers with the basic requirements of the Lacey Act.
• Supplier Evaluation
Determine which products to source and which suppliers to partner with by evaluating “product risk” and “supplier risk” factors.
• Supplier Certification
After providing training on the Lacey Act and our Compliance Program, suppliers will be required to execute the Young Living Lacey Act Compliance Certification.
• Risk Assessment
As part of the certification, each supplier and plant product will be assigned a risk category that will determine the level of approvals needed to partner with, or source plant products for, Young Living. Both suppliers and plant products are independently assessed.
• Auditing/Monitoring
Based on the risk factors, Young Living has developed an ongoing auditing and monitoring program. The new Lacey Act Compliance Program is designed to cover all individuals and organizations in the supply chain.
Our team has been working collaboratively with our corporate-owned farms, partner farms, Seed to Seal-certified suppliers, and the government for more than a year to develop this new program.
We also continually work with environmental experts around the world to keep us advised on the protection of delicate landscapes, and plants..
The Lacey Act Compliance Program consists of five general steps that when followed will help ensure that our essential oil products and partners comply with all laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we do business.
These five steps are:
• Supplier Education
Provide all suppliers with the basic requirements of the Lacey Act.
• Supplier Evaluation
Determine which products to source and which suppliers to partner with by evaluating “product risk” and “supplier risk” factors.
• Supplier Certification
After providing training on the Lacey Act and our Compliance Program, suppliers will be required to execute the Young Living Lacey Act Compliance Certification.
• Risk Assessment
As part of the certification, each supplier and plant product will be assigned a risk category that will determine the level of approvals needed to partner with, or source plant products for, Young Living. Both suppliers and plant products are independently assessed.
• Auditing/Monitoring
Based on the risk factors, Young Living has developed an ongoing auditing and monitoring program. The new Lacey Act Compliance Program is designed to cover all individuals and organizations in the supply chain.
This gold standard program sets the precedent for the industry and demonstrates Young Living’s commitment to lead the essential oils movement by protecting delicate landscapes and plants.
