Mar 152010
I was shocked to watch ABC I-Team news about your organic products. The show pointed out how you have been deceiving your customers for years including me. Your products stated certified organic Californian etc while it printed with small letters in the back Made in China. We all know the Chinese products are not certified organic by FDA and there is no way you can insist they are. LINK TO ORIGINAL STORY: www.wjla.com
Yes, I work at Whole Foods. No, I’m the CEO… and I go around telling everyone that organic food is nonsense.
Basic statistics tells us that, when the resources aren’t available to inspect every unit, inspecting a simple random sample yields a confidence interval for the population statistic, e.g., if I check 100 out of 1000 eggs and find toxin X levels average 0.05 with standard deviation .01, and safe is under 0.1, I can be 99.971% sure all the eggs are safe.
And seriously, who really thinks “California Blend” means the vegetables were grown in California? Not to be some Whole Foods champion or anything (I do shop there for some things), but they are not required to put Product of China on the bag, but they do anyway.
Actually, this TV station (& ABC) is owned by Disney. Whole Foods doesn’t sell Disney Foods. Hmmm.
Be afraid! Be very afraid! We have no idea they’re not organic or that there is anything wrong with them BUT BE AFRAID! Sensational expose of…nothing! Run away! Run away! Whole Foods sells foods clearly marked with country of origin…RUN!!! SCREAM! Brought to you by Proctor & Gamble, Kraft, and PepsiCo!
I love the Hypocracy of “Organic” Foods.
Grow it yourselves America!
Especially your pot.
I would be an angry troll too if I worked at whole (which you do, or you are the CEO, the same one who got caught trashing/blogging his competitor (Wild Oats) using fake names on blogs to reduce it’s value so you could buy it cheaper and then fire most the employees and raise prices). Now who is an idiot? USDA only inspects 10% if that, get real!
Seriously?!
If you care about food origin, is it really so hard to find “Product of China” on the back? No.
The USDA doesn’t care about organic because that label is nonsense, and it isn’t worth the extra effort to check. The logos are fine because they’ve allowed third-party deferral.
What is important is safety, and how do we know it’s safe? The USDA “stopped 260 shipments of [contaminated] food.” They’re inspecting our food.
It isn’t Whole Food’s fault you’re an idiot.
This report is seriously alarming! Now I’m convinced I must limit my fresh produce buying to my local farmer’s market…..assuming they’re on the up and up. Today…who can be trusted? It’s a crap shoot folks.
Where do you work, the Chinese embassy, or an “American” company that brings in diseased, contaminated products from an unregulated source like China?
americans are the most untrusted ppl in the world. FACT
Just checked the organic frozen food label on vegetables from Stop & Shop and they also say that they are from China. While in China myself , I saw a news report of Green Peace finding high levels of pesticides in vegetables at Hong Kong grocery stores. Hong Kong stopped allowing imports of veggies form the Mainland.
Shame. Shame. Shame.
I am pissed off. All these years I paid extra money expecting a superior product. Now I find out I have been ripped off!! Shame on you WHOLE FOODS!!!!
I am pissed off!!! All these years I paid extra money for a superior product and now I find out I got ripped off!!! Shame on you Whole Foods!!!
Disgusting! Wholefoods are not living up to the good faith we had entrusted in them.
I’m disgusted by Wholefoods lack of integrity in deliberate misleading the consumer. It certainly sours the good faith I had put in the company. You can be sure I’ll be checking EVERYTHING from now on.
When French inspectors inspected “organically grown” gogi berries in China, they found out they were LOADED with pesticides and stopped importation of the berries into France… I can TOTALLY believe this news about WHOLE FOODS — My God!!! I used to shop there all the time when I lived in California!!
The reporter should get an Emmy award for this report. I will not go to Whole Foods ever again. I DO usually get sick when I buy their meats or fish, so I stopped buying those a while ago. But I had no idea that the organic veggies were not U.S. grown. I don’t support Chinese products since they have been bootlegging medications. The counterfeit medications will kill us alone, not to mention the food. These people are not to be trusted. They hate us. DO NOT PATRONIZE THEM!
Actually, I think the real “government scam” is the one which has convinced you not to buy Chinese products.
no shit
Let us all be 100% sure of what we are ingesting,each day. Avoid Chinese foods/supppliments as they disreguard our standards of health here in North America.
Whole Foods will respond in a simple way: don’t buy any foods from China. If they are not selling, they will disappear and carry what sells. End government scams by not buying Chinese products.
THIS was posted 2 years ago—is it still a fact???
Corporations are bad! China is bad! Pesticides are bad! Organic is bad! Hippies are bad! Let’s see, what ’s left, um, America is bad! Yeah, boo, poo on everything!
I forgot to mention, Whole Foods works hard to put small stores out of business and get rid of competition when they move into a new area. Not to mention sourcing cheap products from far away to cut costs, though compromising quality. Who is greedy now?