I’ve been reluctant to talk much about the crazy op-ed the CEO of Whole Foods wrote in the Wall Street Journal trashing health care reform, because I’m not a boycotter, but I do tend to think that the board should shit-can him ASAP. People can yak about free speech, but when you’re a CEO part of your job is not pissing off your customers. The same goes for Larry Summers at Harvard, of course.
Here’s Matt Yglesias:
At any rate, very few businesses go as far as Whole Foods in marketing their products specifically as part of a quasi-politicized left-wing lifestyle and few CEOs go as far as Mackey in public advocacy of political views that are only tangentially related to his business. If Whole Foods shareholders were to start to wonder whether having their corporate brand dragged into the health care debate is really a smart use of their assets, I would call that a good thing.
Robin G.
Gotta agree here. I can’t figure out what possessed him to publish this crap. It’s like FedEx lobbying for cheaper USPS shipping.
Dave
MY wife and I used to go to the Whole Foods in Portland all the time. USED to go…
My problem is that Mackey built this company catering a clientele that is predominantly made up of the type of people who support things like universal health care. And then he turns around in that WSJ editorial and not only slags that idea, but trumps with the idea that killing medicare and giving rich people tax cuts is the way to true health care reform.
Well fuck you, Mackey. You may get some libertarians to come to your store now. But there is no way you’ll replace all your lost customers with a bunch of slope-browed teabaggers. I’ll hit the farmers’ market in town twice a week and start my own garden. Hell, it’s what I probably should have been doing anyway.
someguy
The sheer rambling insanity of that op-ed, with its regurgitated right wing talking points and lunatic anti-government screediness on full display, was breathtaking. How somebody can get to be president of a major corporation and be so obviously mentally illl, is just completely beyond me. Who really wrote that op-ed? Trig Palin?
harlana pepper
So terrified Dems are somehow feel compelled to abandon a provision (paid-for end of life counseling) which was initially co-sponsored by a repube-lican based on a bunch right-wing whackos screaming disinformation about death panels and comparing our President to Hitler??? Please explain in what universe this makes sense.
Harry Reid’s?
someguy
And really, a campaign targeting his board to get him fired would probably be more useful than a boycott. Let’s see how Mr. Free Market likes it when Ms. At Will Employment kicks his fat Republican ass.
simonee
Rest assured, Patrick Appel over at Sully’s thinks this protest is all nonsense.
Liberals should instead change the color of their websites to show solidarity on the healthcare debate. Turn this site ORANGE!!!
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Is Costco okay, at least? Can I shop there without feeling like I’m lining the pockets of a bunch of Randroid right-wing nutjobs? I don’t own a yard, I can’t grow my own crops. I have to get fruit and vegetables somewhere. Are there any major retail grocery corporations that aren’t run by lunatics? Or is it just the farmer’s market from here on out?
Bill
Jonah Goldberg was going to cite Whole Foods on the cover of Liberal Fascism as an example of our Stalinist ways.Yes, I know, Goldberg be wrong? Unpossible!
Punchy
Went to Whole Frauds yesterday. $8.99 for a lb. of cookies. $3.99 for a pound of fruit. Looks like I’ll be on a fructose and sucose deficiency this week.
Lola
John Mackey is crazy. I heard him speak in February in Austin. He was completely trashing Obama and saying that more financial regulations are bad. Then he admitted the banking crisis was caused by bad businessman. His solution: if more businessmen were like me than none of this would have happened. He really has an ego. I did read somewhere he is against a public option because he thinks it will force businesses to provide better coverage. But I’m guessing he didn’t phrase it that way in his article.
I’ll probably still shop at Whole Foods. I never buy much there since it is so expensive. The flagship store is near my house and gym and has stuff I can’t find elsewhere. I can personally verify that Mackey is a douche. But then, I find that most libertarians are total hypocrites and he fits the mold.
MattF
Mackey’s foray into politics is dumb because it turns off the specific group of people he needs to appeal to in order to make his business grow. Like, for example, me. I live about a mile from a Whole Foods– I can get there, but it’s an extra effort, and I’ve got two Safeways, a Giant, and a Trader Joe’s within walking distance– not to mention various specialty grocers… So, what do you think? Am I going to Whole Foods any time soon? Doh!
Crashman06
@simonee: This week has made up my mind on Sullivan’s blog. I’m through with it. Between him giving Peter “FreedomWorks” Suderman a megaphone, and Conor Clarke’s fawning introduction this morning
I am through with the Dish. Good riddance.
JGabriel
@someguy:
Don’t they go hand-in-hand? The boycott is to give financial oomph to motivate the board.
.
Bobby Thomson
@someguy: Lanny Davis wrote it.
Seriously. That’s not snark.
steve s
I’m generally a disbeliever in boycotts, but I read yesterday what this douchebag said, and I wouldn’t want to be an investor in Whole Foods at the moment.
GReynoldsCT00
“I’ve got two Safeways, a Giant, and a Trader Joe’s within walking distance—not to mention various specialty grocers… So, what do you think? Am I going to Whole Foods any time soon?”
Even if he hadn’t done this, I’d pick TJ’s! ;)
Zifnab
:-p The wingnut whiners are all for freedom of speech right until they see the Dixie Chicks go on tour. I’m really tired of people claiming “freedom of speech” rights in a country where – let’s be real – you can be legally fired for your boss walking into your office and saying, “Hey you, I don’t like your face, get out of here.”
No one is threatening Mr. Mackey with jail time or government fines. So drop the “free speech” canard. He’s free to call the current health care debate evil socialism and propose some short-sighted conservative bassackwards solution, spitting in the face of his client base, he’s free to do so. And if the owner of Tesla Motors wants to come out and say wind farms are lame and global warming is a hoax, he’s free to do that too.
Zifnab
:-p The wingnut whiners are all for freedom of speech right until they see the Dixie Chicks go on tour. I’m really tired of people claiming “freedom of speech” rights in a country where – let’s be real – you can be legally fired for your boss walking into your office and saying, “Hey you, I don’t like your face, get out of here.”
No one is threatening Mr. Mackey with jail time or government fines. So drop the “free speech” canard. He’s free to call the current health care debate evil socia lism and propose some short-sighted conservative bassackwards solution, spitting in the face of his client base, he’s free to do so. And if the owner of Tesla Motors wants to come out and say wind farms are lame and global warming is a hoax, he’s free to do that too.
MBSS
i won’t be shopping there again.
i’m a vege, and eat that type of food, but even before this episode i avoided corporate places like that. it’s about the money over anything else. they would sell widgets instead of veggie dogs if that’s where the profits were.
i encourage people to support your:
1. local farmers markets
2. local, small, family run health food stores
3. grow your own, pilgrim style.
(i heard mackey is a libertarian)
jibeaux
Whole Paycheck used to be more or less the only game in town for organic options, quality produce and “exotic” things like Kalamata olives — ooooh. Now that pretty much every grocery store around has the same stuff, even has store brand organics, I just don’t see any reason to pay those kind of prices. Only time I’ve been there in years was for a short-term very specialty diet I was on for medical reasons and I had to find unsalted foods. For some reason no one else had unsalted chips and peanut butter, probably because they have no taste.
Scruffy, I know farmer’s markets are not the most convenient places, but I do encourage you to shop them as much as you can. Locally grown generally tastes a lot better, it teaches you to use what’s in season, and it keeps money in your community and generic lefty foodie lecture etc.
simonee
@Crashman06: Ha! I was thinking that while reading the latest Yglesias Award quote. Apparently, you can win an award just for saying that Obama’s agenda does not resemble fascism. David Frum is so brave for telling us that!
You’re right: it’s about time we all stop reading. If anything, it’ll accomplish saving us a smug post from Andrew Sullivan about Dish’s readership and how it means t3h conservatism lives on.
Brick Oven Bill
I walk around Whole Foods from time to time to observe the demographics of people who make grocery-buying decisions based on what they think is a political atmosphere.
This, of course, makes no sense to a rational human being, but there are those who are into their feelings, and it is fun to look at them. If there is some especially arrogant and snotty girl with one of those ‘Co-Exist’ shirts on, it is fun to tailgate her around and around the store with an empty shopping cart.
They do make pretty good pizza in their brick oven. But the Whole Foods brick oven is fired by natural gas, not wood. So right away, I knew that Whole Foods was nothing other than a big for-profit corporation, making excessive profits on gullible progressives who are willing to pay a premium for the same food you can get at Sam’s Club.
MikeN
I dont understand the reticence about boycotts here. I bought a fuel efficient car after 9/11 specifically because I wanted to minimize how much $$ I gave to the Saudis.
There is a moral component to every decision we make. Bottled water is ecologically stupid, so we rightly avoid it as often as is practical.
Why is the implication that it is naive to make a choice to avoid lining this guy’s pockets? If “THE MARKET” in its infinite wisdom is the only thing that motivates business people, then I say that pulling the levers of that market is a legitimate course of action.
Ditto Glenn Beck’s advertisers.
JGabriel
@Brick Oven Bill:
How would you know?
.
Zifnab
@simonee:
The day is fast approaching where saying shit like, “Obama isn’t going to kill your grandmother” and “Please give the birth certificate stuff a rest” will get you canned.
So, in that sense, Frum has something resembling balls, if only because he so fiercely and proudly defends the right to be mealy mouthed and apologetic.
monkeyboy
This may be impossible. Mackey founded Whole Foods and may still control enough stock votes to ensure that he remains CEO.
Chad N Freude
We are talking about the same John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, who was so lavishly praised by a poster on Yahoo bulletin boards? That John Mackey? Right?
The Grand Panjandrum
@Dave:
We did it when we lived in New Mexico and now in New Hampshire. We’ve only lived here a year and we have become acquainted with several local farmers and our kids love visiting the farms that allow visits. We didn’t grow anything this year, for the first time in years, but we will next year. As we build relationships with local farmers we’ve found that they are people who love the land and work for a relatively meager existence. Better they receive the higher price for the produce than some faceless corporate entity. Our local co-op food store is fantastic and does a good job of holding the line on prices. They have a lot of local produce, dairy, meat, and baked goods for people who can’t make it to the farmer’s market.
If you budget your money properly, and don’t allow anything to go to waste, buying at the farmers market and the local co-op food store, is comparable to shopping at the local chain supermarket. It is always cheaper than shopping at Whole Foods. I never understood the fascination with Whole Foods (or Wild Oats) because they were selling more “organic” food. You still have to ship that lettuce a long way to eat salad in January. I don’t see the benefit.
If you plan out your menu for the week and then shop accordingly you would be surprised out at how little waste you end up with. It also makes it simpler to stay on budget and saves time and stressful quick trips to the grocery store to pick up dinner on the way home from work, as well.
steve s
“There is a moral component to every decision we make. Bottled water is ecologically stupid, so we rightly avoid it as often as is practical.”
Few people currently know how bad bottled water is, ecologically. It’s terrible.
YellowJournalism
Anyone else notice how the end of the op-ed kind of turned into a commercial for Whole Foods, since he seems to blame a lot of the health care crisis on people’s lifestyle choices?
What bothers me about an argument like that is how it doesn’t address the lack of proper access to preventative care and nutritional education, not to mention the fact that all the healthy living in the world won’t help you when you’ve been in a major accident and require multiple surgeries that will bankrupt your family.
And like I said in another thread, the man is delusional when it comes to his opinions on having to provide supplemental insurance in the UK and Canada. Seems to me that there is a great disconnect between his US stores and those up here and across the pond.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
While I initially wanted to mock the ideology of someone who thinks a desire for peaceful coexistence is an arrogant trait, I’m really too creeped out by stalking.
.
Crashman06
@simonee: Yeah, that was pretty bad. It’s the incestuousness of The Atlantic that’s really getting to me. Sully lets McArdle’s astroturfer boyfriend post for a week because he’s friends and coworkers with Jane Galt? And Conor Clarke gets to post because he’s Suderman’s BBQ buddy? What the hell? And he has the balls to criticize the MSM for being too much of a closed circle? Give me a break.
Dave
@Brick Oven Bill:
You stalk women at Whole Foods while wheeling an empty cart? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?
wasabi gasp
Death by a 1000 organic rotten tomatoes.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Brick Oven Bill:
“This, of course, makes no sense to a rational human being, but there are those who are into their feelings, and it is fun to look at them. If there is some especially arrogant and snotty girl with one of those ‘Co-Exist’ shirts on, it is fun to tailgate her around and around the store with an empty shopping cart.”
You’re a creepy stalker, BOB. One of these days, you’re going to get maced or tasered.
wasabi gasp
@wasabi gasp: friggin “a”
simonee
Megan Mcardle is pledging to shop at Whole Foods to counterprotest!
How cute. Enjoy spending obscene amounts of money on food that’s cheaper at the store a block away! Progressive will be really hurting from your decision.
Zifnab
@Brick Oven Bill:
Taking copious notes and remaining distantly observant, BoB was able to locate the “Alpha Male” and, with time, gain it’s trust. After months of arduous research and documentation, BoB successfully documented the migration patterns, diet, and mating habits of the tribe.
One day, BoB hopes to prepare his doctoral dissertation on the customs of this bizarre and exotic market place beast. But for now, he can be found silently peaking over the side of a grocery basket, scratching a four month old beard, and scribbling on the backs of abandoned paper shopping bags.
gopher2b
First, its clear that few of you actually read the article. Two, its clear that Dougj has little to no understanding what “free speech” means. Three, there are a lot of reasons to not invest in Whole Foods and Whole Foods being the target of a “boycott” because they don’t waste money on health care is certainly not one of them. Four, any one who visits Whole Foods to observe the “demographics” is a dork.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@jibeaux:
“Scruffy, I know farmer’s markets are not the most convenient places, but I do encourage you to shop them as much as you can. Locally grown generally tastes a lot better, it teaches you to use what’s in season, and it keeps money in your community and generic lefty foodie lecture etc.”
Believe me, I wish I could shop them more often. But with health insurance deductibles costing as much as they do, it’s hard to front the extra expense. (I wish I were joking.) Costco and Price Chopper are cheaper, so unfortunately that’s what we’re left with.
dr. bloor
@GReynoldsCT00:
Ugh. TJ’s packaging is spectacularly regressive and destructive. They haven’t met a produce item that can’t be individually packaged in form-fitting plastic or something equally as disgusting.
monkeyboy
@Brick Oven Bill:
In other words you are one of the people I sometimes see in Whole Foods who go there just to eat the free food samples and not buy.
I rarely shop at Whole Foods because I have other cheaper basic/exotic/premium markets nearby. But for some reason avocados and limes are generally cheaper at WF and I am a big guac head.
Chad N Freude
@Zifnab:
I wonder what BO Bill bases his “grocery-buying decisions” on. The people he derides factor a social belief into their decisions, and this determines how they value what they buy. From what he writes, I assume that he is a perfect economic rationalist who bases his decisions solely on actual, as opposed to perceived, value.
Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice
But does he have a good tire swing??
I strongly suggest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as an alternative to Whole Foods produce, and an alternative to having to spend a morning haggling at the farmers’ market (unless you like that kind of thing). For those who don’t know, a CSA is basically like buying a subscription to a farmer’s entire growing season. The farmer gets a steady, predictable income stream and you get all the advantages of buying locally and supporting small growers, plus a guaranteed quantity of high-quality produce every week.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@gopher2b:
“First, its clear that few of you actually read the article.”
I did. It’s a bunch of loopy right-wing horseshit. Anyone who mentions tort reform as part of the solution to the health care crisis should be taken about as seriously as someone who wears tinfoil helmets to deflect the alien mind-control rays.
“Two, its clear that Dougj has little to no understanding what “free speech” means.”
Mackey’s got the freedom to be an asshole in public, and the rest of us have the freedom to react as we see best. If I were a shareholder in Whole Foods, I’d want him gone if he cost me money. It’s bad for business to rant about this shit. Same as if a Whole Foods employee got fired for ranting about Ayn Rand at the top of his lungs in front of customers. He’d be fired, too, because it would be bad for business. He won’t be arrested for voicing his opinions, but private employers can choose to disassociate themselves from him for voicing opinions that hurt their interests. What’s unclear about that?
“Three, there are a lot of reasons to not invest in Whole Foods and Whole Foods being the target of a “boycott” because they don’t waste money on health care is certainly not one of them.”
Why not? Why should I invest my money in businesses that are under boycott? If the boycott seems like it might be effective, why should I ignore it?
“Four, any one who visits Whole Foods to observe the “demographics” is a dork.”
On this, we wholeheartedly agree. BOB’s just doing it so that he can stalk lefty women, though, which is more than just dorky. It’s downright creepy. Assuming BOB’s not just spoofing, though, which he probably is.
Crashman06
Original comment stuck in moderation hell for some reason. Here goes again:
@simonee: Yeah, that was pretty bad. It’s the insularness of The Atlantic that’s really getting to me. Sully lets McArdle’s astroturfer boyfriend post for a week because he’s friends and coworkers with Jane Galt? And Conor Clarke gets to post because he’s Suderman’s BBQ buddy? What the hell? And he has the stones to criticize the MSM for being too much of a closed circle? Give me a break.
ChrisS
Fortunately, like DougJ, I have a Wegman’s to shop at.
While, they’re not perfect, they give employees health insurance, buy produce from local farms, and hand out scholarships.
Re: Mr. Megan – why is it that once a right-wing blogger cracks the surface tension of notoriety and stands out only slightly more than the rest of the wackos and nutjobs (in Mr. Megan’s case, it’s apparently because of who he’s sleeping with), said writer starts appearing all over the place. What’s next, a guest shot on Fox News for this rising young star that says the exact same thing as every other tired ol’ wing-nut welfare recipient?
jibeaux
@monkeyboy:
Cheap avocados and limes? You need to discover latino markets. The one near me, when the limes are on sale, they are 20 for a dollar. Their regular price is 10 for a dollar.
Ben Richards
@monkeyboy: I checked Google finance. Whole Foods appears to be be widely held with insiders owning less than 5% of the shares…
MBSS
@ Chad N Freude/ 26th post
great post, great name.
mackey is obviously a quintessential douche-nozzle.
eastriver
I’ll be food shopping in the NYC area later today, but I won’t be hitting one of the Ho Foods.
Fairway instead. Bigger selection for non-organics, and a pretty big selection of organics. And cheaper. (I go back and forth between the two.)
And Trader Joe’s? Fuck that. Wait in line an hour for the tastiest and cheapest selection of frozen appetizers? Fuck that with Joe’s over-rated dick.
What in God’s progressive name was Mackey thinking? Whole Tool.
eastriver
I’ll be food shopping in the NYC area later today, but I won’t be hitting one of the Ho Foods.
Fairway instead. Bigger selection for non-organics, and a pretty big selection of organics. And cheaper. (I go back and forth between the two.)
And Trader Joe’s? Fuck that. Wait in line an hour for the tastiest and cheapest selection of frozen appetizers? Fuck that with Joe’s over-rated dick.
What in God’s progressive name was Mackey thinking? Whole Tool.
MBSS
excuse me. 27th post.
JGabriel
Dave:
BOB was traumatized by a lesbian Chinese restaurant fight:
Although one could make the argument that BOB’s inability to stop staring at the fight is evidence his psyche was already affected.
.
.
Chad N Freude
Why should I invest my money in businesses that promote social or ecological or economic positions that I disagree with? Oh, wait, I forgot — the only consideration is profit.
wasabi gasp
I find this somewhat commendable. It’s an activity I doubt many would spend time on during their paper or plastic fifteen minute break.
Brick Oven Bill
Sam’s Club has better free samples than Whole Foods.
It is interesting to compare and contrast the women of Sam’s Club vs. the women of Whole Foods. There are similarities regarding the differences between the women at a Glenn Beck get-together vs. the women at an Indigo Girls concert.
The Sam’s Club/Glenn Beck women probably average a ‘7’, but the standard deviation is relatively small. The vast majority of these women range between a ‘5’ and a ‘9’.
The Whole Foods/Indigo Girls women are not as good looking on average, probably a ‘6’. But there is a higher standard deviation. For instance, it is not at all uncommon to see a ‘2’ walking around Whole Foods, or a ‘10’.
The women of Whole Foods also have a high standard deviation when it comes to shaving, and the application of deodorant.
jibeaux
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
I like Costco for just about everything, but I just find I don’t really need that quantity of produce most of the time. They have a great price on salad greens, but it’s in those tubs that are like bags of holding. You can take some out, make a salad, fluff the greens up, and voila — a full tub of greens. I can never eat it all before it goes bad.
salacious crumb
Ok maybe its just me…but maybe could we start a thread on the latest news on Obama healthcare..which is that Obama is ready to compromise on the public option? what do y’all think? Any anger? Think compromising with these assholish health care industry is a good thing?
MBSS
some people have addressed the prices @ whole foods.
16.99 for an ounce of mac salad always did seem a bit exorbitant to me too.
YellowJournalism
BOB just got creepier. Didn’t think that was possible.
Chad N Freude
@MBSS:
Thank you. All plaudits cheerfully accepted.
Re post numbering: For @-ing, I recommend clicking the almost-invisible curvy arrow at the end of the time stamp.
ChrisS
… BBQ skills I have taken advantage
Why do I find it historically ironic that a method of cooking (probably a misnomer in this case, because grilling a NY Strip loaded with a steak seasoning on a gas grill ain’t BBQ) perfected by poor black southerners trying to get tough cuts of meat tender and tasty has become of badge of honor among the generic frat boy suburban homeowners?
Along those lines, why has the travel channel and the fod network become a bastion of burgers, grilling, and fatty greasy southern food? Where have you gone Mario Batali?
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
FWIW, Mackey just sold off 50,000 shares of Whole Foods stock on August 6, 2009.
(Sorry, don’t know how to embed links, I’m a luddite.)
http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=63452
harlana pepper
@salacious crumb: Agreed!
Is it a trial balloon? How stupid can this debate get, when over 70% of the peeps support public option? I am truly, truly amazed.
harlana pepper
What we need is less supplication to the minority, more Howard Dean.
MBSS
@Chad N Freude:
thank you, good sir. john cole would be disappointed if i didn’t use all his fine functions.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
BOB, your posts make it clear that you wouldn’t know a high deviation if it was staring at you from the mirror.
.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@jibeaux:
“I like Costco for just about everything, but I just find I don’t really need that quantity of produce most of the time. They have a great price on salad greens, but it’s in those tubs that are like bags of holding. You can take some out, make a salad, fluff the greens up, and voila—a full tub of greens. I can never eat it all before it goes bad.”
Yeah, my wife and I have the same problem. We’re penny wise, pound foolish when it comes to grocery shopping. I’ll see if I can get her to agree with the farmers’ markets, just on the basis of having less food around to waste. She’s the one who controls the money.
monkeyboy
@jibeaux:
I should have mentioned that I am in the North East with no nearby Latino communities. This can make it hard to buy peppers because they may have been selected for the local market taste – e.g. I’ve bought jalapeños with little heat tasting like bell peppers. Strangely I’ve found that the local Japanese store has good prices on avocados while the Afro-Caribbean store is great for peppers.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
I can hardly wait for the horror film where the Whole Foods Stalker traps a 5 to 9 woman in a shopping cart and forces her to eat heavily packaged non-organic synthetic food.
Skepticat
Whole Foods has a nice contact section on their website. As I am a boycotter, I sent them a note to the effect that they won’t be seeing me again, courtesy of Mackey the Wacky.
harlana pepper
@Brick Oven Bill: Using Glenn Beck in any way, shape or form to determine a “female attractiveness demographic” is a dangerous thing, my friend. Well, actually, it’s just darn silly. You’re a caution, BOB, truly.
Fulcanelli
@Brick Oven Bill: Bill… You aren’t fooling anybody. At least not on this blog, anyways. So just give it up.
A) You’re a stalker and a pervert, which is be expected from a personality disordered right wing turd polisher such as yourself.
Also.
B) Certainly not all, but much of the food found at Sam’s club is nutritionally garbage. It’s the cheapest, bottom of the barrel, carb and fat laden stuff made that you find dished out on your local ‘roach coach’ catering truck found traveling around from job site to job site that has been helping keep Americans’ waist lines and cholesterol levels skyrocketing, and thus sending the cost of health care into the ionosphere.
Americans spend less on average on food than Europe and especially Japan, but they eat less, eat better, generally are healthier and spend less on health care.
Is there any topic you could bring up to discuss here that you AREN’T wrong on, for a change? Y’know, just to break things up?
jibeaux
@Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice:
I did a CSA once and while I enjoyed it somewhat, there was not the variety that I had hoped for. By the end of the season I was weeping at the kale and baby bok choi that I had gotten for approximately 27 consecutive weeks, or what felt like it. So I throw this out there in case someone needs to start their own business and is feeling entrepreneurial, an idea a neighbor of mine came up with, that I wish I had. This is the 2nd year of operation and she has over a thousand customers.
She deals primarily with a local farm to provide most of the produce, and they do a fairly wide variety of things. The CSAs in my area do not seem to do peaches, blueberries, etc., although there are plenty of farmers who do. I can’t quite figure this out. So anyway, she gets them to box up a CSA-style box, she offers three choices every week of box and you can do it all online. Then the box of produce is delivered, weekly, to your door. She deals with other people to provide other locally made options as well, like honey, bread, hot sauces, etc. The boxes generally cost $21 and are sufficient for a family of four for a week. She also throws in a page or two of recipes for the foods in the box.
The advantages, to my mind are: 1) delivery, delivery, delivery; 2) choice; 3) the ability to cancel if you’re on vacation (my experience with the CSA was you either lost the week’s produce or you had to get a friend to go pick up your box for you), and 4) not having to pay several hundred dollars up front at the beginning of the season for the choice.
This all sounds a bit evangelical and this is not my business nor do I have any stake in it, but I just think it was such a good idea.
Comrade Darkness
As one whose body cannot tolerate soy, visiting Whole Foods is like navigating a mine field. If they want a CEO who mouths off stupid stuff and damages their business. More power to them.
b-psycho
@MBSS:
…why are doing those things considered somehow incompatible with libertarianism?
(not particularly directed specifically at you, more a general question in context)
MBSS
can i nominate BoB as the best republican troll of 2009? the frothing dipshits on politico and WaPo just can’t compete. i’ll buy the trophy if that’s an issue.
lesbians, chinese food, and stalking at whole foods. sublime.
Zifnab
@Chad N Freude:
As a glibtarian, I assumed he long ago cast off the shackles of soc ialist hegemony and now lives in a cabin deep in the woods, subsisting on a diet of collected roots, berries, and the occasional small game, and posting from a jury rigged hand made 486 powered by a peddle crank located under the fallen oak tree he uses as a desk.
Capri
I read the op ed, and I found it terribly offensive. Not the slurs about “Obamacare” and the loose use of the facts, but the entire premise of the article.
Sure, the population’s health would improve if everyone exercised and ate better. But whether that’s would be reflected in lower health care costs is open to debate. There was a study that found that being morbidly obese actually saves money because once you’ve died of your massive heart attack at age 59 your health care costs go to zero. Not so Mr. and Ms. Diet-and-Exercise who incur medical costs for 30 more years before racking up gigantic end-of-life expense when they do eventually die.
The notion that proper diet and exercise can REPLACE health care is just not borne out by the facts. It’s really the intellectual equivalent of saying that everyone has health care because everyone can go to an emergency room.
The editorial has a huge blame-the-victim bias. Got cancer? Perhaps you should have jogged a little more. Got spina-bifida? That’s definitely your mother’s fault and we all know who has to pay the sins of their parents. Getting sick is already seen as a moral failing in this country – if everyone had this attitude it would make it 1000% worse.
harlana pepper
The only thing I thought I could not live without from Whole Foods is their 365 brand soda, made wife real sugar. Oh it’s good. (sigh)
MBSS
@b-psycho:
they are not at all inherently contradictory to libertarianism. that was just a quick aside at the end. actually, farmers markets are a great example of free markets functioning in a healthy and competitive manner.
Notorious P.A.T.
“to observe the demographics of people who make grocery-buying decisions based on what they think is a political atmosphere. This, of course, makes no sense to a rational human being”
So what do you think is rational? Making who someone can marry a political decision?
jibeaux
@monkeyboy:
Whoa, I thought the latinos were everywhere. Well, if you have any sun, you can grow hot peppers fairly easily. They grow in containers if you don’t have land. If you find a pepper you particularly like, you can even save the seeds from it and have a go at planting it.
Crusty Dem
OT, can we please get a post about Tom DeLay doing “Dancing with the Stars”? It’s just such an awesomely logical progression – Bug Exterminator ->Texas house -> US house -> House Whip -> House GOP majority leader -> indictment -> resignation -> failed book -> Dancing with the Stars.
Zifnab
@b-psycho:
Because talking a good game about libertarianism at the top of your corporate empire is one thing. Going out into the woods and living a Galtian life of hard fought survivalist poverty without the pages of the WSJ to bitch from is quite another.
malraux
I have found that Whole Food’s prices on some things are reasonable. Contrary to BOB, if you have a WF with a pizza oven, they make an incredible pizza for a reasonable price. The meat and seafood selection is typically pricey but actually tastes good and has some level of ethical standards.
All that said, WF is primarily part of the industrial organic chain. They are willing to fly fresh asparagus around the world. My local WF stocks mushrooms, wine, and some baked goods made locally and that’s about it.
For me, a boycott as a form of protest is worthwhile. The only reason Mackey was given a platform to spout such nonsense is that he runs a large company. I’d put this in the same category as me not shopping at Walmart, ordering Dominos pizza, or buying Mondavi wine. I don’t want to fund activist conservatives or glibertarians.
btw, for those that find farmers markets inconvenient, check out http://locallygrown.net/ It combines a lot of the advantages of CSAs and farmers markets with the advantage of web ordering.
gizmo
I’m just thankful for these here Internets. Without the WWW, there would be little discussion and no coordinated response to a dipshit editorial like Mackey’s. He would have written his piece, a few people might have submitted letters to the editor in response, and that would be the end of it. It is worth celebrating the fact that now we have a communications tool that allows for real follow-up. Things aren’t perfect yet, but the political dynamic has changed in a big way, and for the better, IMHO.
RSA
Mackey:
It never fails to bug me when someone talks about the citizens of other countries with socialized medicine having to wait in line and doesn’t mention that those citizens live longer than they do here in the U.S. Doesn’t that trump waiting in line? Just a bit? Does John Mackey tell his stores that it’s okay to sell lower-quality food at higher prices, just as long as people don’t have to wait too long in line to get it?
Notorious P.A.T.
“Few people currently know how bad bottled water is, ecologically. It’s terrible.”
No doubt. Coincidentally I just read an article about vitamin water that I found fascinating. Did you know Coca-Cola owns that brand, and it’s “healthy water” contains almost as much sugar as . . . Coca Cola?
http://www.alternet.org/water/141912/vitaminwater%27s_empty_calories_are_at_the_heart_of_what%27s_wrong_with_the_beverage_industry/
b-psycho
Damn lack of preview…
Notorious P.A.T.
“830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily”
That’s the Investor’s Business Daily that said Stephen Hawking wouldn’t be alive if he were British, right?
harlana pepper
@Capri: No fucking shit. I was in good shape and very rarely ever called in sick (unlike most of my co-workers) or took full vacations. Then I was diagnosed with Stage 0 DCIS (most common form of breast cancer). No one would insure me (also b/c I have a depression diagnosis — fucking fuck, who ISN’T depressed these days, and you’d think it’d be better to get some help as opposed to shooting people to death). It’s been almost 3 years since my surgery, my mammos come back clear, and I really haven’t been sick a day since then. But nobody wants to insure me, still.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
I wonder, though, how many shares of Whole Foods Mackey still owns. He just sold off 50,000 shares on August 6. 50,000 shares sounds like a Hell of a lot to me. Does anyone have the information available on how many shares he still owns?
JackieBinAZ
Two things about right-wing guys who stalk liberal women: they have a perpetual boner over the idea of liberal women being liberal in ALL things, and their response to an impassioned argument on health care being a right and not a privilege is “I bet you fuck like an animal.”
Conservatism is always a deal-breaker to me.
tc125231
@Crashman06: Good decision. I came to the same conclusion over his response to “birther” nonsense.
Walker
Why would you go to Whole Foods when you have a superior grocery store like Wegman’s, that also sells organic and local produce (as well as an incredible foreign selection)? Whole Foods is just overpriced crap.
Captain Haddock
Internet “boycotters” are pretty much as legitimate as hot blonde women on AOL and guys with huge dicks.
gopher2b
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
“Mackey’s got the freedom to be an asshole in public, and the rest of us have the freedom to react as we see best. If I were a shareholder in Whole Foods, I’d want him gone if he cost me money. It’s bad for business to rant about this shit. Same as if a Whole Foods employee got fired for ranting about Ayn Rand at the top of his lungs in front of customers. He’d be fired, too, because it would be bad for business. He won’t be arrested for voicing his opinions, but private employers can choose to disassociate themselves from him for voicing opinions that hurt their interests. What’s unclear about that?”
Nothing is unclear about it. What is unclear is why Doug would bring it up because “free speech” has no application whatsoever to this topic. He could have said “People can yak about ‘cows jumping over the moon’, but when you’re a CEO part of your job is not pissing off your customers” and it would have been just as relevant.
Why not? Why should I invest my money in businesses that are under boycott? If the boycott seems like it might be effective, why should I ignore it?
First of all, Whole Foods is probably a terrible company to invest in right now because its sells apples for $6 and we have the worst economy in 80 years. That being said, whatever they will lose because of the “boycott” is far less than what they save by not providing lower deductible insurance to their employees.
Whether you agree with them or not, they are cutting costs and that will make them more profitable. You can choose to use your investments as political speech if you want to but it’s dumb. No one cares and you will lose money.
gypsy howell
@ChrisS:
You might be disappointed to know that the Wegman family is one of the 18 super-wealthy family dynasties pouring money into right-wing anti-tax groups. Among other things, they gave us “the death tax” meme.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28418678/the_death_tax_scam/print
I can’t bring myself to go out of my way to a Wegmans anymore. I might as well just shop at my local, cheaper corporate food overlord Safeway.
harlana pepper
@Crusty Dem: I heard that this morning and just about fell out of my car. At least he has the “smile” for it, perfect.
Comrade Darkness
@MBSS: Farmers’ markets ARE regulated. From the rules and fees of using the stalls to the food safety regulations overseeing what can be sold.
They owe their popularity to their regulations. Few Americans would buy stuff out of a dusty abandoned toxic site strewn with trash with no lanes for parking where half the goods were stored in the danger zone for hours before getting sold.
Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice
@jibeaux:
That’s a great enhancement, jibeaux, and your friend deserves to be successful with it. Our CSA has plenty of variety, from blueberries and peaches to fresh shiitake mushrooms (and some truly truly awesome heirloom tomatoes) but I, too, confess to being nonplussed by the profusion of bitter greens. I just don’t like most of them. Fortunately, our guy is generally amenable to switching items out for anything else he has extra of that day.
gypsy howell
@Walker:
To you too, re: Wegmans. See my comment at #100
MBSS
i had a small epiphany. farmers markets prove to me that i am indeed for free markets principles in many respects. you can’t gouge customers because competition is fierce. you can’t buy off politicians for some type of regulatory advantage because the playing field is fairly level. you have to provide quality goods and customer service due to the competition.
i like free markets in that context. i just don’t like corporate oligarchs screaming about free markets when what they really want is a monopoly, with the government backstopping them in case they fuck up.
The Other Steve
Adolf Hitler was a Vegetarian. He felt slaughtering animals to eat was exceptionally cruel.
Seriously, go look it up.
OriGuy
I looked at the 10-K and Proxy Statement. According to the Proxy Statement, Mackey now owns less than 1% of outstanding stock. All directors and officers own less than 19%. The largest single owner is Green Equity Investors, which I take to be a mutual fund. The group with the biggest clout on the Board is probably the managers of such funds.
The 10-K lists sources of substantial risk, such as economic collapse, widespread epidemic, etc. Doesn’t appear to include boycott caused by founder pissing off target market.
Walker
@ChrisS:
I see I was beaten to this comment.
My wife spent a summer doing an internship at Google in SF. One of the hardest things she had to deal with was that there was no Wegman’s. While California has great farmer’s markets, the grocery stores (including Whole Foods) are all subpar.
Comrade Dread
I like how it’s all or nothing with health care, when half of what the guy proposes would be pretty decent reforms.
If we did the first half of his ideas and threw in subsidies for free clinics in low income areas, forced insurance companies to not drop people for getting sick and cover pre-existing conditions, and ‘encouraged’ pharmaceutical companies to make more generic prescriptions cheaper, that would go a long way toward achieving the results you’re trying to get through a strictly single payer option.
MBSS
@ comrade darkness
you are correct. free markets is not the right word since that implies lack of regulation. i like regulation. i think i was trying to say “competitive market principles”
Notorious P.A.T.
“Contrary to BOB”
I think that goes without saying.
OriGuy
Oh, and most large publicly-held companies have this information on their websites. Look for “Investor Relations”.
Zifnab
@RSA:
Wait, is this the same IBD that claimed Steven Hawking wasn’t British?
MBSS
comrade dread and comrade darkness are related? who is the older sibling?
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: What about Trader Joe’s? Granted, they don’t have as big of a selection as Whole Foods, but it is much cheaper.
Notorious P.A.T.
“Few Americans would buy stuff out of a dusty abandoned toxic site strewn with trash with no lanes for parking where half the goods were stored in the danger zone for hours before getting sold.”
Brick Oven Bill would. Otherwise he would be bringing politics into food-shopping, which isn’t rational.
Comrade Darkness
@Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice: nonplussed by the profusion of bitter greens
We just signed up for a late summer CSA, and I’m a leafy green vege fiend. I look forward with garlic and guanciale seasoned anticipation to the challenge of keeping up.
At my house it goes like: what, you are cooking up that whole huge bag of spinach? me: this is my serving, of which I will offer you a little with your meal.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@gopher2b:
“Nothing is unclear about it. What is unclear is why Doug would bring it up because “free speech” has no application whatsoever to this topic. He could have said “People can yak about ‘cows jumping over the moon’, but when you’re a CEO part of your job is not pissing off your customers” and it would have been just as relevant.”
I interpreted DougJ’s remark as meaning what I said, that Mackey can say what he wants but that the rest of us can then flip him off for it. Maybe I’m being too generous, but I guessed that DougJ was trying to pre-empt any idiotic trolls who attacked him for somehow castigating Mackey for free speech. Maybe.
“First of all, Whole Foods is probably a terrible company to invest in right now because its sells apples for $6 and we have the worst economy in 80 years.”
Apparently, Mackey agrees. He just sold 50,000 shares.
http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=63452
“That being said, whatever they will lose because of the “boycott” is far less than what they save by not providing lower deductible insurance to their employees.”
Every little bit helps. (Or hurts, in this case.) Boycotts are often more about psychological impact than actual effectiveness. Actual effectiveness doesn’t matter to most businesses, anyway: When it comes to a choice between firing someone and losing $.50 in business, every business I’ve had dealings with wouldn’t hesitate to shitcan the person standing between them and two quarters.
“Whether you agree with them or not, they are cutting costs and that will make them more profitable. You can choose to use your investments as political speech if you want to but it’s dumb. No one cares and you will lose money.”
I don’t own any Whole Foods stock anyway, and had no plans to buy any. I didn’t shop there before, but this gives me very strong incentive not to start shopping there in the future, even if my local Costco burns down or something.
As for using my investments as political speech, I care where my money goes even if no one else does. That’s why I don’t invest money in Halliburton or any number of other heinous businesses that I know make money by fucking people over. I know those businesses will remain profitable, but I sleep better at night than I would if I chased their nickels. If I found out I could make a fortune investing in child slave labor or something, I still wouldn’t do it. If that’s dumb, it’s dumb. People who do it might get rich, but some things are more important than money. No one cares but me, but my opinion of me is pretty important to me.
MBSS
i have my terminology squared away now. i am a mixed markets advocate.
Comrade Darkness
@MBSS: I tend to use the term “healthy markets” (meaning one where market principles are removing the bad actors and rewarding the innovators) but that term would bomb on this thread. Ehem.
MBSS
mixed economy advocate.
MBSS
@Comrade Darkness:
thank you for pointing that out. i hate when i abuse vocabulary. i want words to be my friends.
Mark Gisleson
Mackey isn’t just the CEO, he’s the co-founder and a principle stockholder. He’s not going anywhere.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Sputnik_Sweetheart:
“What about Trader Joe’s? Granted, they don’t have as big of a selection as Whole Foods, but it is much cheaper.”
I’ve only been in one of those once. It’s definitely better than Whole Foods, but I’d still prefer Costco or Price Chopper or Shaw’s (those last two being my regional chain grocery stores).
Martin
I went to the local Whole Foods once and nearly died of shock at the prices. It was pretty and had a very nice selection, but fuck, I’m not made of money. I’ll stick with TJs and the farmers market.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Mark Gisleson:
He must own quite a few shares, if he sold off 50,000 but still has a majority interest. There are only 140,479,419 shares of common stock in corporation; I wonder how many he owns.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/865436/000110465909049778/a09-18956_110q.htm
Here’s Mackey’s securities sales sheet. 50,000 shares sold, as of August 6, 2009.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/865436/000114036109018056/form144.htm
Hmm. Officer James Sud also sold 5,000 shares of Whole Foods on August 6. What the Hell is going on over there?
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/865436/000114036109018083/form144.htm
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Stupid comment moderation. Mackey sold 50,000 shares on August 6, and some other officer named James Sud sold 5,000 shares on the same day. What that means, I have no idea.
jibeaux
re: nonplussed by the profusion of bitter greens
I like greens fine, but they just grow so many types of them and they have a long growing season in the South. Plus I have two kids that I am trying to get excited about the idea of local produce, and they are more excited about fruit. And shiitakes, oh, how I wish someone would provide those. I have never seen mushrooms for sale at any farmer’s market here. I am not sure what that means.
Brick Oven Bill
For the record, tailgating a female with a ‘coexist’ shirt or a bumper sticker on a Prius is not stalking, be it either with an empty shopping cart around Whole Foods, or with a domestic pickup truck around a shopping mall. It is simply taking advantage of a teachable moment. It also violates no laws that I am aware of.
There is a lot of money in brick oven pizza. Malraux makes the point that the cost of Whole Foods pizza is reasonable. This is true, relative to a sandwich, or a piece of fish. I think I would get ¼ of a pizza for around $4.50. This works out to $18/pizza.
But the ingredients to make a pizza are only ~$1.50, when you buy them at Sam’s Club. I am seriously thinking about opening a pizza place and have scheduled a meeting with the building official today. My pizza is better than Whole Foods pizza. There is no substitute for the age-old practice of wood-firing ovens.
monkeyboy
@OriGuy:
The real question is how much stock Mackey controls which includes stock owned by relatives, friends, and people with whom he has a back-scratching relationship
Michael
Asian markets usually have that stuff, too.
MBSS
@ BoB
you are right about wood oven pizza. i think i should eat some breakfast now. this website always makes me hungry.
jibeaux
@Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice:
Oh, and since you were so kind to compliment the idea, she did two other things with it that I thought were great. She sold boxes through the elementary school as a fundraiser, donating the profits from all of those boxes back to the school and you could pick up the box in the carpool lane or at afterschool — how much better is that than the stupid overpriced wrapping paper? — and she will sell you a second box of produce whenever you like for $17 with the idea that you would donate it to someone you knew who could maybe use the help.
Eric S
I see someone else already made comment on this but loking at some numbers. According to yahoo finance Mackey holds about 1.096M shares. The company has a market cap of 3.8B with a stock price around 27.00. If I correctly understand such things (suspect) I can do maths (usually) then he only has about a 0.7% stake in the company.
Graeme
The coverage the right wing blogs are giving this boycott is really funny to me, because its so obvious they’re just relieved to be able to make fun of left wing protesters again. I think they were really uncomfortable watching the right wing retards at the health care rallies. They are pouncing on this with real gusto.
wasabi gasp
I’ve been making my own pizza for a few years now and I’ve spoiled myself for it. Most other pizza now tastes like drive-thru fast food crap. Although, I still find the mashed potato and chicken pie at Bar in New Haven, CT to be a treat.
malraux
“This is true, relative to a sandwich, or a piece of fish. I think I would get ¼ of a pizza for around $4.50. This works out to $18/pizza.”
Dude, it was like 11 dollars for a 16 inch pizza, including 3 toppings which were high quality elements that you cannot get at a sams club.
And holy fuck are you a creepy creepy nutjob! Seriously, go be insane somewhere else.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Brick Oven Bill:
“For the record, tailgating a female with a ‘coexist’ shirt or a bumper sticker on a Prius is not stalking, be it either with an empty shopping cart around Whole Foods, or with a domestic pickup truck around a shopping mall. It is simply taking advantage of a teachable moment.”
To whom does it teach what? Creepy pervert.
“It also violates no laws that I am aware of.”
Depends on your jurisdiction. Here’s the definition of stalking in Vermont (13 V.S.A. § 1061):
“As used in this subchapter:
(1) “Stalk” means to engage in a course of conduct which consists of following, lying in wait for, or harassing, and:
(A) serves no legitimate purpose; and
(B) would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her physical safety or would cause a reasonable person substantial emotional distress.
(2) “Course of conduct” means a pattern of conduct composed of two or more acts over a period of time, however short, evidencing a continuity of purpose. Constitutionally protected activity is not included within the meaning of “course of conduct.”
(3) “Following” means maintaining over a period of time a visual or physical proximity to another person in such manner as would cause a reasonable person to have a fear of unlawful sexual conduct, unlawful restraint, bodily injury, or death.
(4) “Harassing” means actions directed at a specific person, or a member of the person’s family, which would cause a reasonable person to fear unlawful sexual conduct, unlawful restraint, bodily injury, or death, including but not limited to verbal threats, written, telephonic, or other electronically communicated threats, vandalism, or physical contact without consent.
(5) “Lying in wait” means hiding or being concealed for the purpose of attacking or harming another person.”
That carries a penalty of up to two years in prison or a $5,000 fine, according to 13 VSA § 1062.
Depending on what you’re doing, and whether you’re engaging in what a State’s Attorney would consider to be a “course of conduct” over the short period of time you’re following these women around, you could potentially be criminally charged with stalking in Vermont. (Getting a conviction might be harder, but again, it might all come down to how creepy you were trying to be.)
Of course, the law’s probably different in your state. It could be even more strict, or it could be less strict. If I were you, I’d call a local attorney and find out about it before I tailgated any more random women around the supermarket with a shopping cart, BOB. Best case scenario of what might happen is still not good; worst case scenario is pretty awful.
Warren Terra
@ Harlana Pepper, #81
There may be other options, though, for example Jones Brothers. I read someplace that cane-sugar-soda is making a comeback, and even Coke and Pepsi are considering selling it (other than the obvious Passover Coke, which already uses cane sugar but isn’t available year-round).
.
@ Eric S, #134
This was already clear in the thread, for example from Ben Richards @ #49:
I suspect, however, that (1) his being the founder gives him an awful lot of power and influence, even if it doesn’t automatically translate to votes; and (2) the shares being so widely held may mean that it is very difficult to assemble any significant voting block to protest against Mackey’s sabotage of their brand name’s good will, such that the insiders’ 5% may actually loom larger than it would appear.
jwb
@Lola: Since you’re in Austin, what does Whole Foods have (besides higher prices) that Central Market doesn’t? Not that I know much about HEB’s politics.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Eric S:
“I see someone else already made comment on this but loking at some numbers. According to yahoo finance Mackey holds about 1.096M shares. The company has a market cap of 3.8B with a stock price around 27.00. If I correctly understand such things (suspect) I can do maths (usually) then he only has about a 0.7% stake in the company.”
We’d have to keep an eye on it, to see if he keeps selling shares off. Or, if his officers sell any more. Could be a case of rats sinking the ship they’re fleeing. Why they’d do that, I have no idea.
Ben Richards
@monkeyboy: The public float is >98% . This all publicly available info. He doesn’t “control” the public float. The control there is with institutional investors. You can see the top 10 holders by % on either yahoo or google finance. They’ll vote with their feet if the stock consistently underperforms.
The point above about Founders is a good one. They have a way of hanging on even when it is clear that their vision for the company is now blurry or they are making obviously bad strategic decisions (see Yang, Jerry at Yahoo!).
someguy
The local “farmers market” where I live is a total fraud. They aren’t actually farmers, FWIW. They get most of their food the same way as the local grocery’s do, from the regional wholesale food market. Some of it comes in from a couple nearby states, and that stuff is fresher than California or Chilean or Spanish produce, plus they tend to pick the premium produce from the regional market, and it doesn’t go through some grocery store’s local storage warehouse for a week. But you aren’t going to meet many actual farmers there and that shit ain’t organic, unless you say it in the technical chemistry sense, and focus on carbon-containing compounds that were used to fertilize it and kill bugs…
ppcli
I was delighted by the op-ed. My wife has been shopping at the Whole Foods here since it opened many years ago. When it’s my turn to do the shopping, I go to the farmers market and the locally owned “not as good as whole foods but far better than Krogers” supermarket. My wife likes the Whole Foods meat, which is indeed very good (though insanely expensive), and she was taken in by the “progressive” public relations. I would point out that I brought home four times as many groceries for half the price, and our kids preferred them.
.
She’s a med. school professor, though, with a clinical affiliation at the local V.A. hospital though, and so she is in a position to recognize the lies and sleazy half-truths of Mackey’s piece and she was infuriated.
.
Happy ending: she’s finally stopped shopping at that giant paycheque sponge and I’m looking forward to salting away many extra hundreds of savings every month.
.
Thanks, Mackey. If I every meet you I’ll buy you a Coke.
ppcli
I was delighted by the op-ed. My wife has been shopping at the Whole Foods here since it opened many years ago. When it’s my turn to do the shopping, I go to the farmers market and the locally owned “not as good as whole foods but far better than Krogers” supermarket. My wife likes the Whole Foods meat, which is indeed very good (though insanely expensive), and she was taken in by the “progressive” public relations. I would point out that I brought home four times as many groceries for half the price, and our kids preferred them.
.
She’s a med. school professor, though, with a clinical affiliation at the local V.A. hospital though, and so she is in a position to recognize the lies and sleazy half-truths of Mackey’s piece and she was infuriated.
.
Happy ending: she’s finally stopped shopping at that giant paycheque sponge and I’m looking forward to salting away many extra hundreds of savings every month.
.
Thanks, Mackey. If I ever meet you I’ll buy you a Coke.
lawnorder
You guys should look at the forum there. Is so full of right wing keyboard commandos defending Mackey it made me want to puke.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/forums/index.php
EWWWW
Doubt any of them will actually SHOP at WF but hey, they are swearing over a stack of bibles they will.
Sad_Dem
More on Mackey:
He kept his job after that. http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1133440820070712
Bob
@MikeN:
Because they often punish the workers, with little impact on the company CEO. I am not an absolutist by any means, I won’t shop at Walmart and technically, that hurts their employees, but I am helping Meijer and Kroger, who have better paid employees.
I remember a bunch of liberals who wanted to punish GM because in 2004 their PAC gave more heavily to R’s while Toyota’s gave more heavily to Dems. So they were going to buy Toyotas. GM’s PAC may have given more to R’s, but their workers (UAW) were giving almost exclusively to Dems, so the boycott made no sense. It was poorly thought out.
If Whole Paycheck treats their workers well and aren’t running other, better companies out of business, a boycott may not be a great idea.
(FYI- GM’s PAC now gives more to Dems.)
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@lawnorder:
“Doubt any of them will actually SHOP at WF but hey, they are swearing over a stack of bibles they will.”
I’m sure Sam’s Club will be very upset at the loss of business revenue when its former clientele switch to WF.
malraux
@ppcli: One thing I did to move off all industrially produced beef was to find a local farmer and buy a side of beef. I paid about $3/pound, the meat was cut exactly as I wanted it, the quality is as good or better than WF, and it works out to be far more ethical and environmentally friendly. If 300lb of meat is a bit too much, you can always find another family or two to split it with.
TR
It is simply taking advantage of a teachable moment.
Was the lesson “Hey ladies, this is what a sad pathetic loser looks like?”
Silver Owl
Mackey is a category 5 hurricane to marketing and customer relations. Eating his organic veggies and meats definitely did not make him smarter nor address his inability to pay attention and do proper research before making an ass out of himself.
Money and power has been a detriment to Mackey. He is too slow to notice it.
asiangrrlMN
Wow. I did read the article, and he is full of shit. I don’t shop Whole Foods, in part because we have excellent local co-ops which have better food and more reasonable prices.
As for the “doesn’t shave, doesn’t use deodorant” thing, yeah, what of it? Guys don’t shave their legs and armpits (for the most part), so why should I? And, I am allergic to all scents and crap touching my skin, and I prefer the smell of sweat to anything synthetic, anyway. Besides, real men don’t give a shit about things like shaved legs (OK, in MY mind they don’t).
Cain
@Dave:
MY wife and I used to go to the Whole Foods in Portland all the time. USED to go…
I never went. I always went with New Seasons who have really good customer service in the area I am. There prices are kinda high but I only go for certain stuff like the meat, wine and beer. Otherwise, it’s Trader Joe’s and Freddies. I’ve had the butcher go in there and try to thin slice beef for me so that I can make Korean steak that really impressed the hell out of me since it was pretty labor intensive. I don’t think any normal grocery store would do that.
As for whole foods ceo.. fuck him. He shouldn’t piiss off his customers who are the ones that want health care and what not. Moron. I hope to see him booted off soon. Although if he gets a golden parachute instead of a golden shower I’ll be pissed.
cain
asiangrrlMN
P.S. If ANYBODY followed me around a store with an empty shopping cart, I would either call security or pop said person in the nose. Just a friendly warning.
Bodhi
I admit it: I spent an average of $100 a week at the local Whole Foods. Last week, because of the WSJ op-ed with its obnoxious headline that Mackey now says was written by WSJ editors, I switched to a smaller organic grocery called, of all things, Green Acres.
Buying most of the same products, I saved 20 bucks, and my new store is actually closer, just in an opposite direction. I’ve always grown my own veggies, and this has been a terrific year for them.
We’ve said goodbye to Whole Foods and good riddance to Mackey.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@asiangrrlMN:
“P.S. If ANYBODY followed me around a store with an empty shopping cart, I would either call security or pop said person in the nose. Just a friendly warning.”
BOB is the creepiest, scariest regular poster seen on Balloon Juice since the halcyon days of scs. I think he even edges out Darrell, and that’s saying something.
arguingwithsignposts
From the looks of things, the market didn’t like the boycott either. WFMI is down today.
pcbedamned
@lawnorder:
The funniest part about this whole thing is that during the election, the folks over at HA were putting down WF like there was no tomorrow, and holding their own little ‘boycott’. Since the op-ed piece, many of them have ventured in, and it is their new favorite store!?! Now their ‘boycott’ consists of all advertisers that pulled from Beck.
Yep, politics sure is an oxymoron :-)
Flugelhorn
How upset will you be when this protest does not achieve your desired result? How will you react when, after counting all the tears and cries of outrage, there will be nothing to show for your efforts?
Will you decry the state of the nation or will you finally realize that your little microcosm does not refelct the will and desire of the majority?
Single payer is bad, public option is bad.
The truth is, if Mackey were to make a post on this blog, he would instantaneuously become the sanest person among the commenters.
BTW, work is not accomplished without profit. Without profit, how do you pay for the administration, the doctors, the research and development? I am amazed that there are people on this planet that live in a bubble where profit is evil and believe that healthcare can somehow be “free”.
vacuumslayer
Have to put a plug in for Wegmans here. I love the place to the point of it being almost perverted. If loving Wegmans is wrong I don’t wanna be right. They have an amazing cheese and wine selection, hot Indian, Thai and Chinese food, and off-the-charts gorgeous bakery/meat/deli/convenience items (like gazpacho). I have to severely limit my time in these sections, so I don’t end up with a 600 dollar grocery bill. Also their produce selection is amazing and includes a decent selection of organic and locally-grown stuff. I’ve had my ear chewed off by the seemingly VERY happy staffers and once heard a man–I’m not joking–singing at the top of his lungs as he walked into work. There’s a reason I call it “the best place on earth.”
Comrade Kevin
@Walker:
That statement is just laughably stupid.
DougJ
@Flugelhorn
Weak spoof.
DougJ
Maybe I’m being too generous, but I guessed that DougJ was trying to pre-empt any idiotic trolls who attacked him for somehow castigating Mackey for free speech. Maybe.
Yes, that is exactly right.
DougJ
Fortunately, like DougJ, I have a Wegman’s to shop at.
While, they’re not perfect, they give employees health insurance, buy produce from local farms, and hand out scholarships.
My feelings exactly.
magjaysc
I mean…Whole Foods is whole foods…and more; however, what’s up with this CEO???
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Flugelhorn:
Boring spoof is boring.
Can’t you do something fun with your spoofing? Tell us that if death panels come around, we’ll eventually end up living in “Logan’s Run,” where government agents kill people on their 30th birthday to save money, perhaps? See? I just thought of that one off the top of my head, and it’s already way more entertaining than your bullshit.
If you’re going to spoof, try to keep the rest of us awake. BOB’s spoof is creepy, but I certainly wouldn’t call it dull. The idea of trailing a woman around a supermarket with a shopping cart is pathetic, creepy, and disturbing. But it’s certainly not boring. Use your imagination a bit. Expand your horizons. Remember, when you’re spoofing, you’re imitating some truly crazy people. So go ahead. Be crazy! As crazy as you want to be. The crazier you are, the more authentic you’ll seem.
I hope that helps. Happy trolling!
tavella
I know that the CEO gets bashed on Wall Street for paying his workers good wages and benefits, and not union-breaking.
Anyone have anything bad to say about Savemart? Switched to them primarily during the strike, though I still sometimes hit Safeway for late night shopping.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@tavella:
Thanks. That’s reason enough to keep shopping there.
Flugelhorn
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
See… This is what I am talking about. Not 1 iota of debate. Just pure ad hominem. You do not know me. You have not even bothered to ask. You and those like you seem to be all or nothing in your views and there is no talking reason to you at all. Not when the best you can come up with is that what I wrote is somehow a “spoof”, whatever the hell that may be.
Shall we all close our eyes and dismiss intelligent people for their ideas and hope they go away? The position does not jive 100% with yours? Just pluck an eyelash and blow him off. OR better yet, let’s bomb them.
Some of you really need a hard look at yourselves. How can you say these things and somehow think you are any better than the Republicans, Independents, and so-called “Blue Dog” Dems you pretend to have moral and mental superiority over?
Rather than try to dismiss, or shout down people who do not agree with you (As the good people in this community have chastised Obamacare protesters for doing) why not try listening and maybe debate something on its merits and follow it all the way to the end for how it might possibly get paid for, and THEN look further still to see how the economics of the things might play out in 15, 30, 60 years. Do you truly believe that if a PO were implimented that it would NOT destroy insurance companies and effectively force a single pay system down the throats of the american people? That it, like medicare and social security, would not quickly become a bloated, “too big to fail, to entrenched to disolve” government entity that employs more people than it actually helps? Great! Let us hear your reasoning.
You certainly seem to be fond of long term modeling for that sort of thing when trying to prove how the world will be a 120 degree smoking husk if we do not stem global warming soon.
So far all I see are a group of vocal people who seem to be saying, “We want this, we want that… OH! And that over there” but when asked how you expect it to be paid for, you become Helen Keller.
Midnight Marauder
@Flugelhorn:
Shall we all close our eyes and dismiss intelligent people for their ideas and hope they go away?
No, but we shall dismiss weak spoofs and idiots with nothing constructive to say or anything productive to add to the ongoing conversations.
For example:
Do you truly believe that if a PO were implimented that it would NOT destroy insurance companies and effectively force a single pay system down the throats of the american people?
No…no one here believes that. Because as other countries through out the world have demonstrated, a government run health care plan does not prevent private insurance companies from existing and still flourishing, albeit with more regulations that they’re burdened with now.
So far all I see are a group of vocal people who seem to be saying, “We want this, we want that… OH! And that over there” but when asked how you expect it to be paid for, you become Helen Keller.
Then you obviously either haven’t been here too long or you haven’t been paying attention.
Pick one.
Silver Owl
Flugelhorn,
Don’t you think that if Mackey had paid as much attention to his revenue resources instead of arrogantly thinking they were all mindless inhuman idiots that had no other oppostions than to spend their money so he could get a huge freaking pay package with health care benefits he’d be a tad bit more, well, brighter?
Revenue resources, aka people, are very important. Mackey’s not getting paid by pooping leprechauns.
WereBear
It’s one thing for religious wingers to say they’ll take the grandkids to Branson because Disney offers benefits to same-sex couples. Disney has a broad base of appeal, and they can easily pick up more gay weddings to make up for the missing boycotters on a basic customer trade. Add in the people who would like Disney for their benefits stance, and that boycott is pointless.
Whole Foods is a whole other beast. They built their customer base on well off Progressives who care about organic foods and will actually pay more for principle. Now their CEO has stabbed their current hot issue in the heart in a highly public and obnoxious way.
I look forward to seeing how this boycott plays out (I’m nowhere near a Whole Foods, so it doesn’t affect me personally,) because I think that Mackey was an arrogant fool for that op-ed. And also because if we can get any corporation to Fear The Hippies, this will pay off in the future.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Flugelhorn:
I offered my help. It’s yours to take or leave. If you want to be a boring spoof, that’s your prerogative. Just don’t expect to get much attention if you’re not going to be the slightest bit interesting. Jazz up your act, stop acting like the grumpy frowny-face wingnut. Spoof with pizazz!
Martian Buddy
I can’t believe “tort reform” still passes the laugh test. Nevada is one of the states that bought into the “doctors being driven out of business by greedy lawyers and their plaintiffs” BS. They enacted a reform package, including caps on jury malpractice awards–caps that their legislature is now looking at repealing, thanks in part to an endoscopy center that potentially exposed almost 40,000 patients to hepatitis C by reusing syringes and one-use medicine vials. Turns out that tort reform did nothing to reduce costs and only made the public more vulnerable to quacks… who woulda guessed?
Blue Raven
@tavella:
Savemart looks pretty good to me. Privately held, so no stockowners to worry about. Donates to good causes with little political twitchery, such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Habitats for Humanity. They took over the Albertson’s near me and turned it back into a Lucky, which was a nice touch of nostalgia. I’ve seen the stock on the shelves improve somewhat since then, too. I still need to go to Safeway for some products they won’t carry, but it’s just on my way for a different errand cycle instead of out of my way so it’s not a hardship. The one thing I will miss from Whole Foods is the canned black soybeans I use when the jones for Mexican gets too much for me. I can’t carb up too far these days and anything else is too much, including standard black beans. I’m not too picky about my meat and there’s a FoodsCo I can get to that serves a Latino community. Pork cuts I never see anywhere else for so cheap it’s almost theft.
CalD
———————
“I’ve been reluctant to talk much about the crazy op-ed the CEO of Whole Foods wrote in the Wall Street Journal trashing health care reform, because I’m not a boycotter…”
———————
We unilaterally disarm and then wonder how the people who don’t are able to keep kicking the stuffing out of us. Hell yes, boycott.
Elie
Last time that I shopped at Whole Foods it was expensive and not better than what I normally get at our local farmer’s market — a true farmer’s market in Bellingham WA with lots of organic veggies and some meat…(pasture raised chicken and pork, some fish).
I love our wonderful local honey and real, natural eggs from hens that scratch and run around eating bugs. Their eggs are heavy and have thick shells. The yolks sit up on the whites and are orange and big. They are very very tasty. Another treat is that they are multicolored — laid by different types of chickens from Aracomas (sp?) to Rhode Island Reds, and fancy black and white speckled hens with weird but cool head feathers, etc. Our egg vendor has pictures of the “girls”.
I would not trade going to market for anything. We also have a great local coop grocery store. Whole Foods? Who cares? Reminds me of an old Mark Twain saying that is applicable to Mackey: “He who knows little soon tells it”
Blogreeder
There were rumors I read about a whacky left wing boycott of Whole Foods because of an opinion. But I didn’t believe it. I said to myself, surely DougJ is more level headed than that.
rose
just to lighten the debate…i found this fun article on whole foods product names: http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/wholefoods/
check it out…