Good Bye Whole Foods

It's sad really, because you really want to believe that there are companies like Whole Foods that are good citizens and actually live up to what they advertise as their core values. It turns out that it is all hype and marketing and as long as you spend your money there they could give a shit about you and your welfare. It is obvious that they could care less that 50 million Americans are one sickness away from destitute or worse, will die from the lack of medical care. As long as you shell out the big bucks for their products they really don't care if you have to skip your medications to pay for it.

It's going to be a challenge because I like the products I find there. Granted, I have cut way back on what I buy at Whole Foods because of the garden and the virtual vegetarian diet of the last few months. I'm just going to have to get over it and find other sources for the things I used to find there. Somebody else sells real chicken and quality fish. I don't, however, know where I am going to find a replacement for Madam's 365 Ginger Ale and that's bad.

I actually find it quite amazing that John Mackey, the CEO and founder of Whole Foods is so out of touch with who is customers are. I would venture to say the progressives, liberals and other "tree huggers" far outnumber the conservatives. His op-ed in the WSJ is unbelievable for someone who heads an organization that claims one of its core values is "Caring about our communities & our environment". Mr. Mackey has revealed his extremist views on employee benefits in the WSJ no less:

While we clearly need health-care reform, 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. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment.

I've known for some time his extreme views on unions but let it go considering what I assumed were the offsetting benefits his business offered. This latest revelation was the last straw however, and I will add Whole Foods to Wal-Mart as an off limits place to shop. I'll use the only weapon I have and that is my pocket book. If Whole Foods or Mr. Mackey retract the op-ed then I will reconsider but it will forever throw a shadow over what I thought was an upstanding company that actually had peoples' welfare as a core part of their values. Frankly, today it is very easy to locate competitors and that is where I'll be.

If you are interested, check out the overwhelmingly bad vibes on the Whole Foods community forum this op-ed has generated and there is a lot more to be found in the discussions in Hopeful Skeptic's and Aptoklas' diaries at the Great Orange Satan. It appears that Mr. Mackey has managed to piss off a whole lot of customers including this one.

h/t to DarkSyde at Kos