Whole Foods Snafu?

Soon after Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that contained this paragraph, ""The last thing our country needs is a massive new health care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health care system..," some of WF's liberal, affluent customers cried "Woe!" Or more likely, whoa! 

The baby zucchinis started to hit the fan. Mutterings of boycotting  WF were heard in the land. Spokespersons for WF said the remarks did not reflect the corporation's views. Wait--Mackey is the CEO, right? Huh?

Union types weighed in. According to a report on HuffPost, "Now the Change To Win Investment Group and United Food And Commercial Workers Union -- both a part of the Change To Win federation of unions representing six million workers -- have put out statements criticizing Mackey and encouraging a boycott of the store." Needless to say, WF is not a union shop.

Up in Santa Fe, where people who work for WF ( and most other retail establishments) cannot afford to live, soon after Mackey's remarks, I observed eager shoppers  locking carts in their eagerness to purchase $14.99 a pound tilapia. The place was jammed, and lines were long at the checkouts.

Boycott?

Now everyone's current favorite food author Michael Pollan has said he will not boycott WF, though he disagrees with Mackey's remarks on health care.  "...Whole Foods is often right about food, and their support for the farmers matters more to me than the political views of their founder." 

Whole Foods is the country's biggest natural/organic food store--it has over 270 stores in North America and the UK, and after buying up Wild Oats, it may be the only game in town for some.

Thanks to Trader Joe's, the local growers market, and  Southwest chain ( established by the former head of Wild Oats, incidentally,)  Sunflower Farmers Market--it's not a farmers market, dare I say!--I rarely hit Whole Foods, lovely though it is. When I do, I buy Swiss vegetable broth cubes, faux Canadian bacon, and a small container of butternut squash/crab bisque which I sit down and eat in situ. That's about it. The place is way too pricey, other than its house brand of crackers, relish, and similar items.

So--to boycott?  I never darken Home Depot's door anymore, after discovering its head honcho was a huge backer of G. Dubya. Bush. But its competitor, Lowe's, is an easy alternative.

Given my pitiful purchasing patterns at the Whole Oat, I doubt my absence will be missed. I'll go back there in a month or so,  after Obama's health care legislation passes.

Comments

[Foodie]

You are right on, Paul--and now I do recall that Mackey dust-up re stock prices, his anonymous postings, etc.

Orchestrated, ignorant galoots wound up and sent out to do mischief, against their own best interests. Hideously fascinating.

[Paul]

Back in 2008, this Whole Foods, CEO John Mackey (how old is this kid?), was caught posting negative comments (trash talk) about a competitor on Yahoo Finance message boards in an effort to push down the stock price. So now I am suppose to take this loser seriously? Please, snore, snore.

It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people (honestly where can they go with a pre-condition). And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait, Medicare and Medicaid and our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.

How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a “lynch mob” advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types AKA “screamers” are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.