Note: This post was to be titled “Goodbye to Ro-o-sie” but Miss Steak beat me to the punch. This post takes a similar look at the Seattle Whole Foods.

We stopped shopping at Whole Foods when we moved to our new house in March. We had divided our grocery dollars between WF and Puget Sound Consumer Co-op up to the move, but the move put us squarely in PCC territory. We now have two PCCs closer to us than the Seattle Whole Foods, and PCC meets the majority of our needs. (Their rugelach isn’t up to snuff, but we love them anyway.)

Between our move and my latest visit to Whole Foods, the Butter Bitch and I read Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and helped launch The Ethicurean and Whole Foods issued their response to Michael Pollan.

I meander through the produce section and past the meat department, intent on looking around a little before I get my bag of potting soil. I am a little surprised when I see blown up pictures of “Local Farmers” hovering above the produce section. Each poster shows the farmers on their farm and explains what they produce and–presumably–sell to Whole Foods. What really surprises me is the disappearance of individual Rosie’s chicken breasts from the meat counter (but they are available in packages of three in the meat refrigerators). In Rosie’s place is a new brand: Whole Foods Organic Chicken.

“How do I send a picture from my cell phone,” I ask the Butter Bitch.

“Aren’t you some kind of geek?” She has a point there. I work with computers on a daily basis and earn my pay herding bits and bytes. On the other hand, I hate cell phones and until now haven’t seen a reason for a camera in my phone.

Whole Foods, like other grocery retailers, does not allow photography in its stores. I discovered this fact one day three years ago, shortly after we moved back to the Northwest. We were meandering through our new local store and stopped in the beer section, happy to be back in the land known to beer aficionados as “Beervana”. You can keep your Sam Adams, your Stone Arrogant Bastard, your Pabst Blue Ribbon. They are nothing compared to the carefully crafted beers of the Pacific Northwest, and I am not too humble to say it. I was so pleased with the beer section that I took out my point-and-click camera and snapped a photo of the beers, proof for friends in California that good beer is here. “No photographs in the store!” bellowed an angry man pushing a cart laden with bottles. We grabbed our six-pack of Fish Brewing Organic Amber and quickly left.

How, then, to show the world what our local Whole Foods is up to? The cell phone provides a simple solution. If someone confronts me, I can launch into a tirade about the stupidity of modern technology and hope they just kick me out of the store. (The cell phone belongs to work, and having it confiscated would cause some embarrassment.) What I don’t count on is the lack of cell reception in Whole Foods or the lighting in the produce section. The vegetables are well lit to draw consumer attention, but the posters above them are in relative (for the camera) darkness. There is plenty of light for human eyes to see the posters, but a mindless digital camera focuses on the best light source–currently coming from piles of lettuce and carrots.

After two attempts at taking a picture, I give up. There is nothing more conspicuous than a 6′ 4″ man holding a cell phone above his head in the middle of the produce section. At least, that’s what I think as I hold a cell phone above my head and get strange looks from the man stocking apples. “Bad reception,” I explain and quickly walk away.

Whole Foods has awful cell reception, which has the nice benefit of keeping people from yapping on their cell phones while shopping. Kudos to them for that.

I ask the man at the meat counter why their chickens say “Organic” now. I explain that I am looking for the familiar Rosie’s signage but don’t see Rosie. He first tells me that WF replaced Rosie with Organic, that the organic chickens are Rosies, and that he doesn’t know why the change was made. After a moment, his face lightens like he is remembering the lines to his script–more like someone flips a switch that tells him what to say–and he tells me that people didn’t know that Rosies are organic and that is why they changed the name. He asserts that they should have changed the name to “Rosie’s Organic” so people won’t be confused about the lack of Rosie. I’m pretty sure that his story is bs–I seem to recall that the chickens were labeled “Rosie’s Organic”. The story doesn’t wash, but I can’t prove it. I come away with a package of chickens, hoping that they haven’t updated the labeling machine (they have) or the computerized checkout system (of course they have). I am not OCD enough to have saved a months-old receipt from the last time I bought chicken at Whole Foods.

Another oddity in the store is the sign at the entrance announcing “LOCAL STRAWBERRIES”. Shoppers cannot miss the sign as it is situated directly in their path as they walk through the southwest entrance. They have to swerve to the right, where they will see an enormous display of–conventional California strawberries. I nearly miss the organic Washington strawberries, 30 feet ahead on a small display island. Someone is trying to promote local products but isn’t paying complete attention.

To their credit, our Whole Foods has always carried some local, non-beer products, and they are increasing their selection. The Butter Bitch happily brought home organic raw milk from Grace Harbor Farms, one that she hadn’t seen before at Whole Foods. The dairy was licensed to produce raw milk in 2005.

Is Whole Foods walking the line? Or are they selling us a line about how good and local they are so we won’t walk away? Time will tell, and until then it is up to the consumer community to act as gadflies to shape their behavior.

On my way out of the store, I pick up a suggestion form and jot down a request that they supply their Northwest stores with locally raised organic chicken. There may not be a local alternative to Rosie and Rocky, but with the combined support of Whole Foods and PCC, there could be.