Whole Foods, which Pollan gently smacked around a little (OK, a lot) in The Omnivore’s Dilemma for its “supermarket pastoral” accounts of family farmers that don’t match up with reality, is fighting back — in a liberal, let’s-talk-about-this-like-nice-people way, that is.
CEO John Mackey, who was profiled lovingly on 60 Minutes last weekend (but I missed it), has written a very long, very passionate blog entry defending Whole Foods Market’s business model that refutes many of Pollan’s key complaints about Big Organic (thanks for the tip, JFK).
Among the points:
- They do buy locally, a lot: “in 2005 in the produce category alone, 45% of our suppliers were considered to be local (within 200 miles) and 34% were regional (within 400 miles) —only 21% would fall into your category of ‘Big Organic’ national producers.”
- They try as much as possible to sell grassfed meat, although to sell fresh rather than frozen, it often has to come from New Zealand.
- WFM is spearheading animal-ethics standards for all of its suppliers.
- They dropped an organic milk supplier that was violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the standards.
And on and on, for pages. Mackey is quite persuasive…although I think sending Pollan a $25 gift certificate for the Argentinean asparagus that he wrote “tasted like cardboard” went a little over the top.
Read it yourselves and let us know if you feel warmer and fuzzier about Whole Paycheck. (He takes on that nasty nickname, too.)
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Humor:
June 7th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
[I refer to the letter as being written by Whole Foods, since Mackey clearly indicates that it was written by a group of Whole Foods executives.]
I’m curious to hear Pollan’s response to the open letter.
That aside, Whole Foods makes the expected argument that they merely serve the desires of their customers without addressing the accusation that they and other “Big Organic” companies mislead their customers with fanciful tales of happy farms. Instead, he attacks Pollan’s objectivity and claims that Pollan should look more closely at existing information about Whole Foods.
They falsely state: “These soon dissolved since members could not agree on ideals and because most of the co-op models were not economically sustainable. A few of these models still are working, including one I belonged to in Austin many years ago, however none of them have been able to offer a strong enough market presence to sustain local or even regional agriculture.” The Puget Consumer Co-op in Washington still is going strong and, as previously noted, is funding the preservation of regional farming. The Boise Co-Op has been in business for over 20 years, though its impact on regional farming is much less (but the population of Boise also is relatively small). Whole Foods is the most successful organic retailer but, like Microsoft and the computer industry, they are not the only reason that organic foods are popular.
The entire West Coast is conspicuously missing from his roundup of “how Whole Foods Market supports local growers and producers.” Perhaps they don’t have as much to brag about here?
An interesting comment hidden in the pages is the opinion that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations should be outlawed.
Whole Foods’ letter reinforces the concept that there isn’t a simple choice when buying food, that you can make better and worse choices. If my only choice is between buying a Rosie’s chicken at Whole Foods or buying a Tyson chicken at a supermarket, I’ll go to Whole Foods. But if I have other choices such as local farmers or local co-ops, I’ll go there first.
I’m glad that Whole Foods is working on national standards and is using their weight to influence policy. They can do better, and we shouldn’t let them think otherwise.