Whole Foods Feeds the Hands That Bite It
If you think you’re having a bad day, imagine the plight of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who recently authored a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed critical of the Obama healthcare plan and today is confronted with protests at his company’s stores and a “Boycott Whole Foods” Facebook group that is 1,100 members strong.
My “favorite” part of the story, as reported by Brandweek, is a quote from Scott Frotman, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, whose group is protesting outside Whole Foods stores in Ohio:
“Whole Foods has attempted to wrap itself in a progressive image, but when you peel back the layers you see that it is run by an executive who repeatedly pushes extreme positions.”
Yeah, what an extremist whacko Mr. Mackey is for claiming that health care is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution (sarcasm intended).
The past few weeks have been all sorts of fun for Whole Foods, which has since issued a letter of apology to its cusotmers and done some serious backtracking to separate the opinions of its CEO from its own corporate opinion on the issue (although I’d be surprised if the two were not one and the same), and established a message board on its Website to allow its customers to discuss the issue.
This episode ranks up there with the backlash that hit the Dixie Chicks after band member Natalie Maines made remarks critical of President George W. Bush.
The bottom line is that there truly is no such thing as “free” speech anymore.
Bill Patterson
in Brandweek, Wall Street Journal, Whole Foods
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Reader Comments (1)
Billiam,
Which system of "health-care" is best I certainly would not know. The current one is expensive and inefficient; the next will certainly be more so. However, as Mr. Mackey has proposed a health-care solution (eat healthy) of which his business is a probable benefactor, please allow me to respond in kind.
Speaking as a bartender (as a draftsman I do not subscribe to the notion that good design will solve our world's problems) I must disagree with Mr. Mackey in a most antithetical way. It is my belief that a life flowing in whiskey and hard drink, thick with smoke, and stuffed with fat-laden steaks is the only solution to rising health-care costs.
These selfish people who adhere to healthy lifestyles live an average of 15 years longer than your heavy smoking alcoholic. Furthermore, they take forever to die, in a long, drawn-out, EXPENSIVE affair contrary to the sudden cardiac arrest so common to the joyous carnivore.
Please, Bill, let's meet soon at Hooper's to do our part in reducing America's health-care burden. We don't want to be seventy, healthy, and lamenting the cigarettes we didn't smoke when we were young....