About Young Living

1993–2014: Formation of Young Living

Young Living was founded in 1993 in Riverton, Utah, with Gary Young as CEO, and was incorporated in 1994. Young purchased a second farm in Mona, Utah, in 1996. Young opened his first international farm in Ecuador in 2006. According to Mary Young, Donald Gary Young ('Gary') gained an interest in alternative medicine after suffering a back injury in the early 1970s.

Young became interested in essential oils after meeting with a French lavender distiller at a conference in California sometime before traveling to France to learn distillation. He purchased a 160-acre farm with his wife, Mary, in the early 1990s, located in St. Maries, Idaho.

In 1996, the company projected sales of between $8 and $10 million and reported annual sales of more than $1 billion between 2015 and 2017.

Starting in 2000, Gary ran the Young Life Research Clinic in Springville, Utah. After settling a lawsuit in 2005, the clinic was closed, and he opened a clinic in Ecuador, practicing medicine and performing surgery there, over concerns from Young Living's COO, David Stirling. In 2008, David Stirling was fired from the firm and founded the rival company doTerra.

In August 2013, Young Living filed suit against doTerra for theft of trade secrets, alleging that the company had recreated its production process illegally. Young Living lost the case in 2017 and in 2018 a judge ordered it to pay doTerra's legal fees amounting to $1.8 million. The companies also settled lawsuits around faked lab tests, false advertising, and theft of trade secrets and withdrew their negative claims in relation to the purity of each other's products.

In 2010 they became the "first large commercial distillery" to distill essential oils from frankincense, and in 2014 their Highland Flats distillery "became the first automated, large-capacity, computerized steam distilling facility ... for essential oils".

2015 to present: Post Donald Gary Young

Young stepped down as CEO in 2015, and his third wife, Mary Young, assumed the role. The company moved its corporate operations to Lehi, Utah, in 2014, receiving tax breaks in order to expand its operations, and in 2017 started construction on its new corporate headquarters. Gary died in 2018.

D. Gary Young (1949–2018)

Founder of Young Living Essential Oils and father of the modern essential oil movement

Partially inventor and partially historian, D. Gary Young understood the untapped potential of nature. His research has taken him to the farthest corners of the planet, where he pursues healing wisdom and extracts the natural properties of flowers, herbs, trees, and plants - bottling them into the world's largest collection of essential oils, blends, and infusions products in the series.

Growing up in a one-bedroom cabin in the Idaho mountains, Gary understood the value of simplicity and developed essential oil solutions aimed at complete and utter purity. After learning about various distillation techniques, he worked to develop the Seed to Seal® Quality Promise - a philosophy that ensures all oils retain their natural integrity and potency, connecting people and plants like never before.

Gary founded Young Living based on his belief in the power of essential oils and that, with the right advocacy, we can serve as a bridge connecting people back to nature.

Mary Young

Co-Founder and CEO

Mary Young plays an active role in the day-to-day business of Young Living, providing direction to the executive team and staff. She also plays a vital role in guiding and empowering clients as they share Young Living's mission and benefits with the world.

Mary entered the direct selling industry in 1985 and within two years cultivated and built a successful multi-million dollar organization. Since Young Living's inception, Mary has combined her extensive knowledge and experience in the direct selling industry with a hands-on approach to help Young Living become and remain a world leader in essential oils.

Mary also plays an important role in Young Living's philanthropic efforts, where she leads global outreach efforts through the D. Gary Young Foundation. She embodies Young Living's commitment to supporting individuals and communities in their efforts to live healthy lifestyles.

SEED TO SEAL

Tens of thousands of humans around the world have begun to discover the benefits of extracting natural plant essential oils. We are committed to establishing and maintaining the ultimate industry-leading standard in the world of essential oil products. For us, providing our customers with top-of-the-line products has to pass strict standards. We are committed to providing a wide range of essential oils and botanical health products fortified with essential oils, which represent the essence of nature and must be passed through our 'seed to seal' strict standards.

Young Living employs strict quality control standards to help ensure our products meet exacting specifications. from 'seed to seal' A set of standards to help ensure that every Young Living pure essential oil and wellness product your family uses, enjoys our global resources, Industry leadershipandTwenty Years of Innovation Benefits to you. The results of it? is well known as The Three Pillars of Seed to Seal, Right nowProcurement, Science and Standards.

As a leader in essential oils, Young Living is also paving the way for all other essential oil companies to improve their operations to the highest quality standards while protecting our planet.

purchase
Not all essential oils are created equal. Young Living will never compromise by adding synthetics, pollutants, or cheap supplements, or using unethical methods of production. Products are sourced and extensively tested on Young Living-owned farms, partner farms, and seed-to-seal certified suppliers by multiple rigorously vetted companies. Once a product does not meet our standards after our exhaustive testing, we do not purchase it, or even reject the lot.

Partnership Principles
Our essential oil suppliers are sourced from our company-owned farms, and partner farms and certified to the Seed to Seal standard. In procurement, we also maintain a positive philosophy towards local communities and ecosystems. We must accept five principles when reviewing and selecting suppliers: building good relationships, seed-to-seal specifications, strict agreements, and contracts, rigorous testing, and continuous audit mode.

Formulation and Production
Our essential oils must use extreme equipment and matching formulas in the material selection production line. Spanish Fork, Utah is a state-of-the-art distribution center using top-of-the-line models to test essential oils, ingredients, and your favorite products.

third party verification
We choose to only work with partners we trust; but even with that trust, we employ third-party experts from around the globe to verify that our standards are up to par. This helps ensure that ingredients from poor quality or unethical sources are never delivered to your door.

purchase standard
The Young Living Essential Oil Sourcing Standard helps ensure the high quality and authenticity of essential oils while encouraging responsible production and processing at all stages throughout 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 development and implementation details of the Young Living Essential Oils Sourcing Standard.

Supply chain: The Young Living Essential Oil Sourcing Standard applies to all stages of the Young Living essential oil supply chain, including farms, wild processing operations, processing facilities (such as wineries), and Young Living-owned equipment. It applies to Young Living company-owned farms, cooperative farms, and Seed to Seal certified suppliers.
Purchasing Standard Details: Young Living and all of our partners must meet the highest standards for:

• verify
• Agricultural practices
• harvest and collect
• Extraction and distillation practices
• test
• Traceability
• Storage & bottling

science
Science is the cornerstone of everything we do at Young Living. Our highly trained scientific researchers use cutting-edge methods to develop new products and help ensure the quality of all our products. Our D. Gary Young Institute and quality teams both work in state-of-the-art laboratories equipped with some of the latest scientific and technological equipment.

Industry Leading Research
While the quality of our products begins in the field, it is proven in our state-of-the-art laboratories. Our rigorous research and development and quality program incorporates more than 50 highly trained and skilled scientists who use advanced testing methods to help ensure products meet our high standards.

Third-party test
Product testing doesn't just take place in our two in-house laboratories. Young Living also works with more than a dozen world-leading, independent, accredited laboratories staffed by highly skilled, highly trained scientists specializing in advanced product testing.

Innovative product development
Our R&D team helps Young Living use cutting-edge science to develop unique, industry-leading products. The team also conducts state-of-the-art research to support product claims and usage. Because purity and potency are so important to Young Living, the research and development team regularly develops new test methods to help ensure the quality of our products.

Rigorous and tough quality
Quality starts on the farm and is verified in our laboratory. Through our rigorous, unrelenting quality benchmarks, we are able to identify the purest, truest, and most potent ingredients.

Our quality control team uses a battery of physical, chemical, and microbiological scientific tests to measure the exact composition and properties of our essential oils. During the quality process, each test is repeated many times. Testing begins on our farm and continues until the final stage before shipping to our customers.
Our team of highly trained and skilled scientists conducts state-of-the-art testing, including but not limited to:

• Density determination
• viscometer
• Refractometer
• Optical polarimetry
• Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS)
• Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES)
• Gas Chromatography (GC)
• High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
• Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
• Automatic micro-enumeration
• Disintegration
• pH
• Microscope
• Flammability
• Flash point
• Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GCMS)
• Chiral chromatography
• Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS)

While all of these tests can be performed in our lab, we often use third-party labs to supplement our in-house testing. Each of these laboratories has highly skilled and well-trained scientists.

standard
Part of our stewardship is conducting business responsibly – from sustainably sourcing plants to revitalizing local communities to complying with environmental and other laws. Through our global compliance program, we strive to ensure that Young Living delivers pure products that give you the confidence to contribute to the greater good.

top standard
Cheap 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 top standards for sustainability.

Global Compliance Program
As part of our commitment to conducting 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 the policies and guidance covered by the Global Compliance Program:

• Young Living Code of Conduct
• Young Living Employee Handbook
• Young Living policies and procedures
• Young Living Anti-Corruption Policy
• Young Living Environmental Compliance Policy
• Lacey Act Compliance Program
• Young Living Travel and Expenses Policy
• Direct Selling Association (DSA) Code of Ethics

Industrial Green Leader
Our efforts go beyond a responsible supply chain. Young Living's commitment to sustainable business includes reforestation; recycling at Young Living offices; and construction of our new, LEED-certified headquarters in Lehi, Utah.

Lacey Act Compliance Program
Not only is our Lacey Act compliance program comprehensive, but it is also the first in the essential oil industry to be government vetted and accepted. It's the gold standard in compliance programs, and we're proud to outperform any of our competitors in establishing it. We are hiring top legal experts around the world to keep us up to date with the latest laws and inform us how to properly apply them to our most important business needs.

Our team has been working with our corporate-owned cooperative farms, cooperative farms, Seed to Seal certified suppliers, and the government for over a year to develop this new program.
We are also constantly working with environmental experts around the world who are on hand to provide us with advice on protecting fragile landscapes and plants.
The Lacey Act Compliance Program consists of five general steps, which 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 Lacey Act basic requirements to all suppliers.
• Supplier Evaluation
Determine which products to source and which suppliers to work with by assessing Product Risk and Supplier Risk factors.
• Supplier certification
After providing training on the Lacey Act and our compliance program, suppliers will be required to perform the Young Living Lacey Act Compliance Certification.

• Risk assessment
As part of the certification, each supplier and botanical product will be assigned a risk category that will determine the level of approval required to work with or source botanical products for Young Living. Supplier and factory products are independently evaluated.
• Audit/monitoring
Based on risk factors, Young Living has an ongoing audit 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 a precedent for the industry and demonstrates Young Living's commitment to leading the essential oil movement by protecting vulnerable populations and plants.

Global Farm

Young Living Farms stand out in the essential oil industry and set the standard for distilling essential oils. That's why our essential oil farms play an integral role in our Seed to Seal® Promise, which promises us to provide pure, potent essential oils to families around the world. We've invested unprecedented time and resources to ensure these standards are prioritized at each of our global farms, cooperative farms and seed-to-seal certified suppliers so your home and family can get what nature has to offer the best thing

Arabian Frankincense Distillery

MUSCAT, Oman

Partner since 2010
The limestone cliffs of Oman's Dhofar Mountains provide the perfect setting for the mastic tree to grow Oman's sacred frankincense resin. The frankincense trees in the area have a long history and have been logged for the past 5,000 years. Today, their resin harvesting methods and schedules are the same as their ancestors thousands of years ago, continuing this centuries-old history.

Taiwan cooperative farms and distillery
Taitung, Taiwan
Partner since 2012
This cooperative farm is actually made up of smaller individual farm operations, each specializing in a different oil. Like every unique operation, each oil has its own story and background, including its preservation, generational history and family significance, as well as the ingenuity and innovation necessary to create it.

Happy Pili Tree Farm and Distillery
Bicol region, The Philippines
Partner since 2018
Happy Pili Tree Farm and Distillery, selected as a cooperative farm for their ethical and conscientious harvesting methods, is Young Living's premier supplier of Elemi Essential Oil. With expertise in how to legally and sustainably source this precious plant and provide workers with a fair wage, the farm conserves natural resources and helps ensure the long-term viability of premium Elemi oil. The farm also vertically integrates the production process by building a winery on site, retaining employment opportunities and expertise within the community.

Kalibe Coconut Farm
Polillo Island, Philippines
Partner since 2019
Kalipay Coconut Farm is located in the lush tropical landscape of the Philippines. Kalipay provides Young Living with our primary source of coconut oil. We chose Kalipay because it shares YL's passion for giving back and supporting the community, donating a portion of profits each year to help end generational poverty through education, leadership and technology scholarship programs. Kalipay Coconut Farm also uses green chemistry, a new discipline that helps in the efficient use of resources and eliminates waste in the production process.

Ningxia wolfberry farm and distillery
Ningxia, China
Partner since 2019
Ningxia Goji Farm and Winery are located in Ningxia, China. The region has a diverse geography: forested mountains and hills, deserts, floodplains and basins scoured by the Yellow River. The river's extensive irrigation supports the production of goji berries, goji berry puree and goji berry seed oil, which are important in YL's popular Ningxia Red® range and other products.