Here’s a great article in the San Francisco Chronicle detailing how Whole Foods has responded to the recent criticism in Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his book, Pollan pulls back the curtain on Whole Foods revealing the hypocritical practices of the supermarket chain: While they advertise that you’re buying spinach that was hand harvested from your neighbor’s organic backyard and wild salmon that was mouth caught by the indiginous polar bears of Alaska, in reality you’re buying the same organic spinach and wild salmon that’s sold at Ralph’s which is not from a local farmer or some fisherman named Al, but rather huge corporate farms and fisheries.

Though the Whole Foods Corporation comes off as responsive to the criticism with CEO John Mackey engaging in a letter exchange with Pollan (I wonder where my $25 gift certificate is for all the rotten fruit) and then instituting changes, it feels bit disingenuous because it all comes off to me with a sharp aftertaste of marketing acumen. It’s also clear that the bigger impetus for Whole Foods to change (or “raise the bar” as it were) is that they feel the heat from Wal-Mart, retail’s 8 ton gorilla, and their plans to go into organics.

That’s right. The best thing to happen to the diets of working Americans is not pretentious ass Whole Foods. It’s Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart, bitches. And that’s punk rock. Just like how Target is the hottt place to buy clothes.

Anyway, back to Whole Foods. I love this quote:

“We have people working in our stores who are incredible produce merchandisers — they display beautifully, and we hire for that,” Rogoff said. Expertise in buying great local produce hasn’t been a priority, he added.

Damn straight they display beautifully. In fact, they “display” so beautifully that they’re able to pass fruit that was on the verge of going off as succulent and muy delicioso.

All goes to prove that the Whole Foods marketing department is devilishly clever. Damn. WF owes me $10. I swear I’m going to be like the paperboy in Better Off Dead. Just when they think they are rid of me, I’m going to pop up screaming, “$10! I want my $10!”

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