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Top Grocery/Health Food Store Award: Whole Foods

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Whole Foods: Almost Perfect. We still love you.

You cannot please everyone with the Whole Foods shopping experience:

The IDEA of Whole Foods continues to impress me but the REALITY of it...uh, not so much.  I went shopping there again and almost all the fruit/veggies that I wanted to buy were "conventional", not "organic".  And the vitamins and stuff were priced about a dollar over what the little health food store near us charges and they're already overpriced.  But I did buy some more of the Cafe du Monde chicory coffee, which I can't get elsewhere, and the organic apples I bought really were delicious.
     I think this is an ongoing thing with stores that sell healthy food...the prices are such that working people can't afford them (yes, we can afford them, but we didn't raise kids and we have above average-paying jobs) so it creates this privileged class that can eat healthy food and the majority who can't.  I think this is going to become more and more of an issue as people become more health conscious.  There've already been several articles I've seen about how the average poor person's diet includes far more junk/convenience food, thereby resulting in more overweight, more diabetes, and more heart disease among the poor.  Healthy food is like everything else in this country---an expensive privilege for the few.

There are also arguments from the Human Rights Campaign saying Whole Foods Market does not fare well with gay employees compared with other chains. The HRC scored Whole Foods low but after an email to Whole Foods we found they do give back to the gay community in some ways. 

Letter to Whole Foods:

A few issues I would like to address as a stockholder and consumer of Whole Foods:
I noticed that Whole Foods is ranked below Albertsons on HRC's list.  Their list can be found here at
http://www.hrc.org/BuyersGuide.

Whole Foods response:

We share your concern about the recent score that Whole Foods Market received on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index.  We were particularly shaken by the implication that our commitment to our team members was based on a score that was not accurate to the practices and values of our company for the last twenty-five years.  We did not respond to the HRC questionnaire and they used incomplete, and therefore
inaccurate, information.  Our score reflects an 'incomplete' assessment rather than an accurate reflection of our human rights policies.  It is our hope that HRC will have corrected this error by early 2006.  

We have never practiced any form of discrimination in our stores, facilities or offices.  On the contrary, we offer health benefits to domestic partners, offer training on sexual diversity, have a generous donation policy that includes GLBT charitable groups.  We do not have
in-house employee groups of any sort other than the teams that comprise our infrastructure.  

It is our belief that our amended score will more clearly reflect the open, diverse culture that is at the core of Whole Foods Market.

Consumer Communications, Whole Foods Market

Local Organic Food Sites:

• varrigreenfarm.com
• localharvest.org - lets you put in your zip code and tells you about sources for organic food and farmers' markets in your area.