Chicken lovers who demand more than the natural, organic, or free-range labels slapped on pretty much everything these days may be happily surprised to find a new product in the supermarket freezer: Applegate Farms has started shipping Non-GMO Project Verified organic chicken nuggets to retailers nationwide.

Sure, we’re talking nuggets here. But pledging to consumers that these U.S. chickens never ate a kernel of corn manipulated by transgenic science signals a significant escalation for Applegate. Just last year, this preeminent purveyor of natural and organic meats promised to eliminate all genetically modified ingredients from production. Now its organic nuggets are the first Applegate item to get the new Non-GMO seal—and they won’t be the last. The company is announcing on Wednesday its commitment to guarantee that every one of its products—both organic and natural—is non-GMO, all the way up the supply chain to the animals’ feed.

“We just think people have the right to know what’s in the products they eat,” Applegate President Steven J. Lykken says.

The problem is that Applegate made its pledge in a country that’s embraced GMO agriculture. Finding enough unsullied feed in America promises to be difficult.

For the nuggets, at least, there won’t be a change in animal husbandry, just the additional layer of verification required for the new label. Applegate’s organic products are already necessarily non-GMO. To be certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, genetically modified feed and ingredients are verboten. The next batch of items to be verified will be its 100 percent grass-fed beef from Uruguay and Australia. Again, by virtue of being all grass-fed, these cows weren’t eating any GMOs anyway.

It’s Applegate’s bigger line of “natural” products, a label which falls short of the USDA organic seal but complies with the company’s internal standards, that will see the biggest difference. These make up three-quarters of Applegate’s business.