Whole Foods Market is the quintessential organic grocery store chain — a place where you
expect everything to be healthy and fresh, clean and open...and don't forget expensive!
But this organic behemoth had much humbler beginnings.
Whole Foods started out with just 19 employees as a 1980s hippy-dippy health food store in
Austin, TX.
Now, it's the biggest natural food market chain in the U.S. with over 460 stores in
North America and the United Kingdom.
So hold on to your pressed juice.
Here’s the whole story…
"Organic chicken, kale salad, and a lemon twist / Some girl in yoga pants is lookin’
at me funny."
Not so sustainable
In February 2016, the chain reported their worst sales in a decade.
They announced that they were closing nine stores, and lowered their sales outlook for
the rest of the year.
While they still generated $4.92 billion in revenue in the last quarter, they were originally
projected to make more.
But Whole Foods might be a victim of its own success.
Organic food is rapidly rising in popularity, increasing over 200 percent in sales over
the past decade.
Even Walmart is in the organics game.
So the thing that used to make Whole Foods special is no longer unique.
“From now on, our family is eating healthy food that looks bad on the shelf, but good
in our colon.”
CEOh-no
The cliche about internet trolls is that they're losers living in their mother's basements
— not that they run billion-dollar corporations.
But from 1999 to 2006, John Mackey, Whole Foods' co-founder and CEO, trolled Yahoo!
Finance message boards about a rival natural foods store chain called Wild Oats.
Using a pseudonym that was an anagram of his wife's Deborah's name, he made over 1,100
of the comments.
News of the internet trollery broke in 2007 when the Federal Trade Commission tried to
stop Whole Foods from buying Wild Oats.
Whole Foods won, but Mackey's reputation took a hit.
And it wouldn’t be the last time he would show his true colors...
Contrary to the Whole Foods brand, in 2013, Mackey told Mother Jones that climate change
was "perfectly natural and not necessarily bad."
And in a 2009 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, he quoted Margaret Thatcher, saying, "The
problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
He’s also anti-union, once complaining, "The union is like having herpes.
It doesn't kill you, but...it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover."
“When I get an outbreak, this is the only product I trust to make this our little secret.”
The up-sell Government agencies in both California and
New York, cited the chain starting in 2014 for doing things such as "adding the weight
of containers when charging for food at the salad bar and hot bar, or including less than
the weight advertised for items sold by the pound."
New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs head Julie Menin claimed that her inspectors
said, "this is the worst case of mislabeling they have seen in their careers."
Consumer Affairs also found that 89 percent of the packages "did not meet the federal
standard […] that an individual package can deviate from the actual weight."
And in multiple cases, the stores also charged for the weight of the box or packing materials.
"So reasonably priced!
Buy me that, Abbi!
Oh, great! this is some high-class sh*t!”
Organic chain-gang?
Whole Foods contracted with Colorado Correctional Industries for prisoners to farm tilapia and
make high-end cheeses.
The prisoners got paid between 74 cents and $4 dollars per day for the work, while the
stores sold the items for much more.
Whole Foods stopped the practice in 2015 after word got out about the prison labor.
"I have to hand it to Whole Foods, they did the responsible thing, and they stopped doing
it just as soon as they were caught.
Just like the prisoners who make their food.”
You’re not fooling anyone
From the dude who thinks he’s the first to say "Whole Paycheck", to the uber-vegans,
to the guy who's just there to pick up hot yoga chicks, Whole Foods attracts a particular
crowd.
"Obviously I don’t do yoga for recognition."
“Right, of course you wouldn’t.
Then stop being so good at it.
That’s very flexible.”
Thrillist spoke to former store employees who mocked people like the "the supplement-trend
zealot" who buys whatever Dr. Oz recommends, "the bulk-bin number ignorer… who thinks
that cashiers can't tell the difference between peanuts and cashews," and "the armchair environmentalist"
with inconsistent standards about local vs. organic.
And anybody who’s ever been in line behind the "cell phone diva" knows how irritating
that can be.
One strike and you’re out
Thinking of shoplifting?
Whole Foods has a "one-strike" policy against it, allegedly banning people for life after
one accusation.
One Chicago woman, struggling to deal with her kids while shopping, told Chicago magazine
that she accidentally forgot to pay for a bottle of vitamins.
When she was caught, she says security took a photo of her, made her sign a document about
the incident, and banned her forever — that is, until she protested up the chain of command.
Fat and unhappy
The standard Whole Foods employee discount is 20%, but it gets bumped up to 30% if you
meet certain health standards, including blood pressure, cholesterol level, and BMI in a
yearly physical.
Jezebel criticized the plan for measuring BMI, saying, "Because if public health research
has taught us anything, it's that reducing people's buying power totally makes them healthier.
Stay classy, Whole Foods."
Pretty much.
Dirty digs
You would think Whole Foods stores would be squeaky clean, but that isn't always the case.
In 2016, the FDA warned Whole Foods about, quote, "serious violations" at a food preparation
facility in Everett, Washington.
The FDA said that the company "failed to manufacture, package and store foods under conditions and
controls necessary to minimize the potential for growth of microorganisms and contamination."
In other words?
Yuck.
Meanwhile, one of their Washington DC stores was closed twice by the Board of Health: once
in 2016 for "failing to minimize the presence of insects, rodents and other pests" and another
time in 2013, also due to health-related violations.
Once more with feeling: yuck!
Whole Foods for life
As we've figured out by now, Whole Foods Market certainly isn't perfect.
Neither is John Mackey, their CEO.
And only time will tell if the chain's plans for reinventing themselves, including opening
the more affordable 365 stores, will be a success.
But even so, Whole Foods has many loyal customers.
Because if you're looking for high-quality meats and organic produce, tasty prepared
foods, and at least one hot chick decked out in Lululemon?
Whole Foods definitely serves it up.
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