Whole Foods Boycott

[SkinnyDevil]

No, I will not be among those who boycott Whole Foods because of the opinion piece offering an alternative to ObamaCare penned by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey.

The thing I find most distressing is that no one I've talked to who supports the boycott even knows what he said - they just keep repeating the lies that they read on the FaceBook group or the various logs. I suggested they actually READ his article (I certainly did), but they ignore and continue to repeat lies.

It amazes me how people will ignore truth in order to sustain belief.

Rant over. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming...

[TylerDurden]

Yeah I hate wholefoods, but what the guy was actually saying made a hell of a lot of sense (and I'm from the UK).

[SkinnyDevil]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

My main beef is not that anyone disagrees with him, but that they want to boycott Whole Foods as a response to their disagreement.

I find calls to boycott Whole Foods for Mackey's unpopular political speech as distasteful as calls - not so many years ago - to boycott the Dixie Chicks for their equally unpopular political speech.

[Raw Rob]

Yeahm I hate wholefoods, but what the guy was actually saying made a hell of a lot of sense (and I'm from the UK).

Why do you hate them? Just curious as to specifics. I haven't done a ton of research on them or anything. It seems like they treat their workers much better than other corporations though. 

I just hate the fact that their eggs are usually not truly free-range, and that they're fed soy. They obviously need to sell more grass-fed meats at better prices. I'm hoping that they are making a slow progression towards that. The meat guys at my local WF say that the grass-fed sells right away every time. You'd think that would help. 

I actually get my sparkling mineral water there because it's much cheaper than at mainstream grocery stores. Which is funny, because here in Chicago people think that Whole foods is always more expensive, and you get made fun of if you shop there by the blue collar culture. (Even if the particular people aren't really blue collar.)

[RawZi]

I just hate the fact that their eggs are usually not truly free-range, and that they're fed soy. They obviously need to sell more grass-fed meats at better prices. I'm hoping that they are making a slow progression towards that. The meat guys at my local WF say that the grass-fed sells right away every time. You'd think that would help. 

I actually get my sparkling mineral water there because it's much cheaper than at mainstream grocery stores. Which is funny, because here in Chicago people think that Whole foods is always more expensive, and you get made fun of if you shop there by the blue collar culture. (Even if the particular people aren't really blue collar.)

I agree on the eggs and on the 365 brand water.  I will continue to buy buffalo or anything they have there that I can eat. I don't care about those politics. My diet is limited enough.  I can't cut out one of the few stores that has some of my foods.  I always prefer getting my produce elsewhere though no matter what.  Whole foods has too small a selection of organically grown produce for me.  Even their berries, although organic, don't seem as fresh.  Maybe they just need to retrain their produce people.

[TylerDurden]

Why do you hate them? Just curious as to specifics. I haven't done a ton of research on them or anything. It seems like they treat their workers much better than other corporations though. 

I just hate the fact that their eggs are usually not truly free-range, and that they're fed soy. They obviously need to sell more grass-fed meats at better prices. I'm hoping that they are making a slow progression towards that. The meat guys at my local WF say that the grass-fed sells right away every time. You'd think that would help. 

I actually get my sparkling mineral water there because it's much cheaper than at mainstream grocery stores. Which is funny, because here in Chicago people think that Whole foods is always more expensive, and you get made fun of if you shop there by the blue collar culture. (Even if the particular people aren't really blue collar.)

I went to the first wholefoods store being opened in the UK and was deeply unimpressed. They did have a few exotic items(I bought a while raw ostrich egg and an emu egg!) but those eggs were undoubtedly fed on grains. They had NO grassfed meat on sale just very expensive ("conventional") meats and same went for fruit. Maybe it was because it was in the first month of opening but I saw hardly any organic food on sale at all.

My main gripe against them is that they are death to small-time farmers. They may be better than the supermarkets in some ways, but, like the supermarkets, they prefer to deal in bulk supplies from big agricombines(which sell low-quality organic food).Fortunately, we now have farmers' markets around London which seem to be thriving so the bloody supermarkets aren't getting it all their own way.

Well, they're called "whole paycheck" for a reason!

[yon yonson]

for lack of a better place to post this:

I just went to my whole foods here in austin, texas and found (for the first time) whole, wild caught (in the USA) mackerel and smelt! pretty exciting because we don't usually get quality seafoods in central texas. anyways, i bought a whole mackerel and a few smelt. they were pretty well priced too, considering i don't live near the coast. i've also noticed that whole foods has been carrying more and more types of oysters... also, they just got in some organic grass fed local lamb!

for those interested, i ate the smelt skin, bones, and all. it actually doesn't really taste like anything. kind of a let down. i'm still gonna eat them though because im sure they're good for me. one even had some roe in it still. the mackerel, on the other hand, is very tasty.

[jessica]

Why do you hate them? Just curious as to specifics. I haven't done a ton of research on them or anything. It seems like they treat their workers much better than other corporations though. 

whole foods can afford to treat their workers well because they are a megacorperation and they really dont give much of a ! about organics, small farmers, or anything besides money.  i can say this because i worked for whole foods for 5 years.  the problem is they justify carrying conventional produce and shitty products to "off set" the cost of organics and "offer a wider variety" and "cater too a broader of customer base".  however if they sold their organics at less profitable percentage to themselves(i can tell you that their margins are HUGE!!!! compared to how much it actually costs).  honestly if i were more greedy and could fake the happy corperate facade(which i always sucked at anyway) i would still work there just for the ridiculously high wages and benefits.  the kind of try to be charitable but that is all facade as well

[SkinnyDevil]

...if they sold their organics at less profitable percentage to themselves(i can tell you that their margins are HUGE!!!! compared to how much it actually costs).  honestly if i were more greedy and could fake the happy corperate facade(which i always sucked at anyway) i would still work there just for the ridiculously high wages and benefits.  the kind of try to be charitable but that is all facade as well

I don't doubt that they are interested in money. But I have to ask: Who isn't? It is how we manage to live in the modern world (that is, acquire food, shelter, & other basic necessities).

Workers typically feel like their wages are too low while customers typically feel the costs are too high. We get angry over margins, but the margin is how the company affords wages, bennies...and keeping the bills paid.

Mackey is imperfect as we all are, but I thought his article from a few years back was revealing:

http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2006_06/mackey-winning.html

[jessica]

i dont know if you understand the politics behind industrial "organic" agriculture and livestock but it has more to do with the sustainability of our current economy then it does with stewardship and sustainability or our environment.  you cannot breathe/drink/eat dollar bills.
by supporting these "organic" mega farms(mostly from california and mexico) and also supporting conventional farming they make it increasingly more difficult for small farms to compete and survive.    the amount of paper work and money required to even certify a farm organic is austounding.  i know for a fact that many local farmers use better practices then industrial organic farms(who still use pesticides, grow less sustainable money crops, lesser quality meats) but the fact is they cannot afford certification, do not have time for the paper work nor agree with the industrial model that the fda/govt wants them to fit into.
i work directly with small farmers and have been one myself, it its a labor or love for the land, plants and health, no one even making a sustainable living, barely breaking even on those farms.  if whole foods stopped it massive expansion(which is also what there poor quality products due to its customers waist lines) and used even a small portion of its profits to rethink its company and shift to supporting local farmers, the support would enable them to provide a sufficient amount of food for each community and for expansion.  people definitely need to shift their idea of food and its availability though.
eating a banana in colorado should be illegal and considered an environmental crime! haha maybe not that harsh but people should be educated enough to understand that not everything is available all of the time, and for god reasons.  in my time working at whole foods i tried to work with regional management to help educate consumers about this but it was pretty futile when all talk would eventually come back to the bottom line $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[TylerDurden]

i dont know if you understand the politics behind industrial "organic" agriculture and livestock but it has more to do with the sustainability of our current economy then it does with stewardship and sustainability or our environment.

Damn right. So much of what is called "healthy food" has led to destruction of the environment. That's one reason among many why I have cut out raw coconut oil/palm oil from my diet, as I'm well aware that consumption thereof in the West has caused dramatic increases in deforestation.

.  i know for a fact that many local farmers use better practices then industrial organic farms(who still use pesticides, grow less sustainable money crops, lesser quality meats) but the fact is they cannot afford certification, do not have time for the paper work nor agree with the industrial model that the fda/govt wants them to fit into.

I agree. Time and again, I've come across many small-time farmers/fishermen who've provided me with raw food of far higher quality than anything the big organic agricombine farms can possibly provide. I get my raw wild hare carcasses from small-time farmers who regularly hunt, for example, and   I deal with a fisherman at my local farmers' market who has far higher-quality raw oysters than I've seen anywhere else in the world, then there's the free-range lamb I['ve gotten which is 100% grassfed but not technically organic, same goes for the horsemeat I get in italy etc.. In many cases, they can't afford to switch to organic certification and , anyway, the term "organic" means nothing much - so little in fact that the UK's Soil Association has suggested strongly that the UK impose 5 different levels of organic certification(with wild game/wildcaught seafood being in the top rank).

The BIG problem with buying from local supermarkets is that, ultimately, it drastically reduces your choices in the long run by removing the competitition and allowing virtual monopolies or cartels of supermarkets. Supermarkets are all about making profits, so they're not interested in providing small amounts of high-quality unprocessed foods for small segments of the market. Small-time farmers , on the other hand, are closer to their customers. It is absolutely essential to buy from farmers' markets, farm-shops or buying direct via delivery from a farm(the smaller the better, IMO)as that means those small-time farmers can make a much bigger profit than they could if they sold to the grasping supermarkets while still being able to offer lower prices to customers than they could get at a supermarket. I  mean I only have to look at Waitrose which is one of the very few supermarkets willing to provide high-quality meats etc. and even then their quality is much lower than in a farmers' market(not just from an RPD perspective) while their prices are much higher, by comparison.

[SkinnyDevil]

i dont know if you understand the politics behind industrial "organic" agriculture and livestock but it has more to do with the sustainability of our current economy then it does with stewardship and sustainability or our environment....(edit)

I have no argument with any of that, Jessica. Perhaps I was less than clear in my statements.

I am not supporting Whole Foods, and I didn't start this thread in support of whole foods. I don't even know John Mackey personally. I started the thread as a statement AGAINST the recent "Boycott Whole Foods" thing that followed as a response to John's op-ed piece on health-care reform.

My statements above, however, stand on their own. Who among us is NOT interested in money (the current dominant means of securing life necessities)? Of course management was interested in how your educational ideas would effect the bottom line. Why wouldn't they be? Every one of your co-workers (and you, too) should be concerned about it if you want to be in biz so you all have jobs there instead of at Wal-Mart in their organic food section.

Whole Foods, for all it's imperfections, is a far site better than much of it's competition. Is Whole Foods as good as my local HFS co-op? Hell no - that's why I shop at the co-op and not Whole Foods.

Perhaps you should try contacting Mackey directly with your ideas...AFTER you are prepared to demonstrate how you can educate the public, support small local farms, remove support form BIG farms, AND still keep the doors open. After all, Mackey decided he had enough money and for several years has worked for only an annual compensation of $1, stating that he works for the love of what he is doing now, not the money.

Show him how his stores can be profitable AND more eco/sustainable, and I'm sure he'll be interested.