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Whole Foods

Whole Foods' rotten core

This article is more than 14 years old
Whole Foods organic food-loving customers are right to feel bruised by its founder's opposition to healthcare reform

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote a thunderous comment piece in which he derided the public option, Barack Obama's biggest campaign promise to progressives, and put forward a stridently conservative view of healthcare for America.

Does Mackey know who his customer base is? Did he really not foresee the backlash that has ensued – the howls across the blogosphere and Twitter, the Facebook petition to boycott Whole Foods?

Pundits argue that Mackey hasn't gotten a fair shake. He sells food after all, not health insurance. He's a successful businessman who has wisdom to share. But Whole Foods is more than a supermarket. From the cooking classes and wine tastings to the monthly event calendar on the wall, Whole Foods aims to be a way of life.

The brand Mackey created caters to a specific clientele. Customers are greeted with signage boasting of local farmers and grass-fed cattle. Whole Foods touts announcements of Green Prom projects and 100-best-companies-to-work-for accolades. The reusable shopping bags and shelves filled with yoga mats and all-natural beeswax lip balm aim to capture the same folks clicking "donate" on the MoveOn fundraising appeals.

These are the same people who pay large sums for a pint of organic strawberries, laughing off or even defending the "Whole Paycheque" label. They tell themselves: It's OK to pay double what those strawberries would cost elsewhere, because they're chemical-free, healthier, environmentally and ethically sound. Whole Foods customers want to feel good about their purchases and believe they are being better citizens for shopping there.

Now Mackey, the face of the company, is not only at odds with a central tenet of progressivism, but a supporter of free-market evangelism that has no space for the community-based, egalitarian solutions his customers support.

Mackey's history is a long line of mergers and acquisitions that would leave the 1980s titans of Wall Street breathless. One by one, Whole Foods swallowed its competition, whole, until it became the venerable giant of natural foods it is today. Union organising was fought. Accusations of corporate subterfuge were made. All of this culminated in a fight with, and finally a win over the US government, over anti-trust allegations.

The public is left wondering what happened to the John Mackey who started a tiny natural foods grocery in Austin, Texas.

Whole Foods has disavowed Mackey's op-ed, but Mackey has not. Regardless, the money in the Whole Foods coffers has given its CEO the clout to commandeer such a bully pulpit. To the chagrin of progressives, he has used their ethically conscious dollars to advocate against a set of values they hold dear. It is no wonder there was an outcry.

So the boycotts and the protests will go on. Eventually they will fade. Slowly, though, as food buyers turn their attention to farmers markets and cooperatives, this whole saga will be just one more reason to think twice before going to Whole Paycheque.

Whole Foods' customers have learned a lesson: its core is rotten.

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