After being alerted to worker fairness issues surrounding the manufacturing of protective gloves, New Zealand agronomist Steve Ardagh, along with partner Lynda Ronaldson, founded Eagle Protect in 2006 with the purpose of responsibly sourcing quality gloves. Today, the food safety concerns of using single-use gloves are equally important in driving the company’s goal of “saving the world, one glove at a time.”

Ardagh reports that Eagle Protect did indeed develop a responsible supply chain and eventually dominated the New Zealand market for single-use gloves, with an 80 percent market share, including most of the large food producers. Six years ago, the company expanded its reach into the US since it is the largest market in the world for single-use gloves.

Steve Ardagh, Founder, Eagle Protect

Headquartered in South Lake Tahoe (and with distribution facilities in Southern California and Pennsylvania), the company has taken particular aim at the food industry, with organic and natural food purveyors being an important target market. Responsibly sourcing the product is still a key selling point but so is the extra steps Eagle Protect takes to eliminate potential contamination of the finished gloves and the material used to make them.

Today, the food safety concerns of using single-use gloves are equally important in driving the company’s goal of “saving the world, one glove at a time.”

According to Ardagh, the company has tested new and unopened boxes of many different gloves on the market and has found contamination to be widespread. This contamination problem—which has been exacerbated by the increased use of gloves since COVID-19 reared its ugly head—is the topic of a third-party, peer-reviewed paper that is in the process of being published.

StretchPoly gloves

Glove sales skyrocketed during the pandemic, and new manufacturers came out of the woodwork. Most of the gloves are manufactured in Asia to take advantage of lower labor and production costs there. Dirty water used in the manufacturing of the gloves is one source of contamination, Ardagh said, but there are many others, including the workers themselves. Ardagh said human fecal matter, dangerous pathogens, and even E. coli and Listeria have been found to be on these gloves prior to use.

Steve Ardagh looking at nitrile glove production line

Eagle Protect also manufactures its gloves in Asia, but Ardagh said the company has independent audits of its facility and uses a five-layered approach to test each lot of gloves that it manufactures.

According to Ardagh, the company has tested new and unopened boxes of many different gloves on the market and has found contamination to be widespread.

“Eagle’s proprietary independent glove analysis tests for cleanliness (microbial and fungal contaminants), chemicals and toxins, durability, and cross-contamination potential, ensuring their gloves adhere to the highest level of food safety performance and quality,” according to the company’s website.

The US Food and Drug Administration does not require rigorous testing of these gloves, and it has been a low-priority item as the US agency chases down scores of food contamination incidents on a regular basis.

Eagle Project Nitrile Gloves

In touting the Eagle Protect single-use glove for the food industry, the company’s founder first points to its base material—nitrile rubber. Ardagh said latex and vinyl are the two other materials often used in manufacturing single-use gloves for the food industry. Vinyl gloves are the cheapest, but they have also been banned by many countries around the world for food handling. “They are not food safe,” Ardagh said.

Eagle Protect’s number one challenge is to raise awareness of food safety issues related to gloves as most people are ignorant of the issue. The company has targeted the organic food industry because there is an inherent mindset that good quality in every aspect of production is important.

Though Eagle Protect gloves are more expensive per glove, Ardagh said they are better gloves, with inferior gloves often yielding much fewer intact units per box. He said some of the cheaper gloves have a 20-25 percent spoilage rate coming out of the box because of tears and holes.

Eagle Protect’s number one challenge is to raise awareness of food safety issues related to gloves.

Ardagh noted that Eagle Protect is the only glove company that is a Certified B Corporation, a social enterprise verified by B Lab, a nonprofit organization. B Lab certifies companies based on how they create value for non-shareholding stakeholders, such as their employees, the local community, and the environment.