Beyond Organic: Why Little Farms Is Testing Oats & Granola for Glyphosate

There's something comforting about a bowl of oats. A warm bowl of porridge on a slow morning. Overnight oats prepped the night before. A big bag of granola you sprinkle over yoghurt and berries without a second thought. Oats are one of those foods that just feel wholesome.

But there's a part of the oat-growing process that most of us never think about — and it's one of the reasons Little Farms is taking an extra step: independently testing and certifying our oat and granola range as Glyphosate Residue Free.

So, what does glyphosate have to do with your oats?

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world. Most of the time it's used to control weeds, but in some oat-growing systems it's also sprayed shortly before harvest — a practice known as pre-harvest desiccation. Because it's applied so close to harvest, some glyphosate residue can potentially remain on the grain.

That matters more than you might expect, because oats rarely stop at porridge. They turn up in granola, muesli, cereal, snack bars, and plenty of other foods you're probably eating on a regular basis.

Wait — isn't organic already pesticide-free?

Organic certification is genuinely valuable. It sets clear standards for how food is grown and produced in a clean way. 

Glyphosate Residue Free certification asks something slightly different: not how was this grown, but what can we actually detect in the finished product?

Instead of relying only on farming practices, this certification adds another layer — independent laboratory testing. It's the difference between trusting how something should have turned out, and actually testing what's in the product you bring home.

Interestingly, USDA Organic certification has a glyphosate residue maximum limit of 5% of the U.S. EPA or FDA tolerance for glyphosate and all other pesticides – for oats this is relatively high: USDA Organic (maximum 1,500 ppb), Glyphosate Residue Free (10 ppb).

What does “Glyphosate Residue Free” actually mean?

In plain terms: eligible products go through independent lab testing for glyphosate and have to meet the requirements of the Glyphosate Residue Free certification programme before they earn the label.

For you as a shopper, the idea is simple — don't just assume, test.

To be clear, this isn't about telling you that foods with legally permitted pesticide residues are unsafe. Certification isn't a safety verdict — it's an extra layer of information to help minimize the pesticide residues you and your family are exposed to.

Why does Little Farms care so much about this?

 Since we opened our first store in Singapore back in 2016, Little Farms has been built around one idea: carefully selected, responsibly sourced food. Testing for glyphosate is simply that philosophy taken one step further.

We're proud to be the first retailer outside the United States to certify our own range of oats, granola and coffee as Glyphosate Residue Free, through The Detox Project.

For us, transparency shouldn't stop at an ingredient list or an organic logo. Where we can test, we want to know. And where we know, we want to tell you — because making better food choices gets a lot easier when you have better information.

Better sourcing. Independent testing. Greater transparency. That's food you can feel genuinely good about bringing home.

Certification applies to designated products that have successfully completed the applicable testing and meet the Glyphosate Residue Free certification Standard.