Ethical consumers in the United States are increasingly concerned with the seeds used in the production of their food. However, this has been an issue in Europe for many years. In fact, there are several transnational seed-saver networks, like Arche Noah, whose members have become experts on heritage seeds. One of the most famous groups within Arche Noah's 8,000-member network is the "live" seed bank Peliti, which has been raising awareness about endangered varieties of heritage seeds since 1995. Once tiny, now Peliti is an NGO that receives thousands of visitors for its annual seed swap where you can get a mind-boggling number of seed varieties for free. It's the biggest event of its kind in the world. They call themselves a "live seed bank" because traditional seed banks store seeds under refrigeration, sometimes for up 15 years, which is "more like a seed museum than a seed bank," according to volunteer Vasso Kanellopoulou. Peliti concentrates on keeping their seeds reproducing [to prevent] genetic erosion. It is [part of] the larger global seed-saver network. Their organization has given birth to many satellite communities that are linked with one another via a Google Group. Panagiotis Sainatoudis, Peliti's founder, says that one of the organization's basic principles is "to support man's freedom to keep his own seed so he won't depend every year on seed purchase, commerce, not even on the seeds supplied by Peliti."