Trending on Facebook this morning is news of the warning sent to Whole Foods by the FDA after the agency found ‘Serious Violations’ in the company’s North Atlantic Kitchen in Everett, MA during inspections taking place this past February. The potential risks to human health resulting from the consumption of foods produced in the conditions present in the North Atlantic Kitchen are exceedingly high considering the facility provides prepared foods to Whole Foods Stores across the Northeast. The FDA’s letter to Whole Foods Market North Atlantic Kitchen (6/8/16), addressed to the company’s co-CEOs, John Mackey and Walter Robb, details the violations and the concern the agency has regarding Whole Foods’ claims “to take all the necessary measures to correct all the deficiencies,” as the company has not provided evidence that these violations have been or are being remedied. Mackey and Robb have been given 15 days to notify the FDA, in writing, of “the specific things that you are doing to correct the violations… [and that this] response should include each step that has been taken or will be taken to correct the violations and prevent their recurrence.” The FDA has requested documentation showing corrections and an explanation of any corrective action being taken that cannot be completed within the 15-day window.
Okay, so this isn’t just Whole Foods not living up to its promise of the most healthy food, but a serious concern about the safety of the food being offered. However, what zero commenters on my perusal of Facebook noticed is that these violations took place in FEBRUARY–4 months ago–and there have been ZERO illnesses attributed specifically to the consumption of prepared foods sourced from the North Atlantic Kitchen. This, of course, is not to say no one has gotten sick; it is to say that there has not been a mass plague caused by dirty couscous, which is good, relatively. But if these violations are left unaddressed, as the FDA suggests they have been since no evidence has been provided to show otherwise, conditions at the facility are not getting better and can, in fact, get worse (bacteria is a living organism).
What is compelling to me is not Whole Foods’ alleged dismissal of the FDA’s “serious concerns,” but the FDA’s seeming lack of ability or inclination to ensure these violations are remedied in a timely manner, with the enforcement of health code held in a state of suspended animation while the agency waits for a written summation of the company’s efforts. Once again, FOUR months where, potentially, nothing has been done. FOUR months during which people COULD BE getting sick from funky pesto. But, as far as I know, no one has, and this is important when we think about what this news actually means for the company and the people who shop its stores.
Market economists and journalists have been predicting the demise of Whole Foods for about 5 years now. And while this claim is substantiated by falling stock prices and declining sales (growth), the company continues to open more Whole Foods stores, expanding the corporation with the introduction of its new, lower price-point, “365” stores. Clearly, there is still demand for Whole Foods and what it offers.
But the gloom and doom regarding the fallings of Whole Foods prevail. In his June 15 report on the violations, CNN’s Paul R. LaMonica states, “Shares of Whole Foods fell more than 2.5% Tuesday. The stock is now in the red for the year. And Whole Foods plunged nearly 35% last year following accusations that it overcharged customers and other health scares. The company has found it difficult to shake off that Whole Paycheck reputation — the perception that its products are way overpriced. Whole Foods may have helped create the organic food revolution. But it no longer has the natural market to itself. It faces tough competition from mass merchandise retailers Walmart, Target and Costco as well as supermarket chain Kroger. Whole Foods also has to contend with organic rivals like Trader Joe’s, Sprouts and Fresh Market. Whole Foods may have been in better position to deal with these competitive challenges if not for a slew of negative publicity about its prices.”
Problematically, as I have argued in the past, the problem for Whole Foods is not their price-point or their exclusive reputation. The problem lies in the company’s desire to hold higher standards and compete at the level of price. Capitalism demands we cut corners, and what is more evidentiary of corner cutting than egregious health and safety violations and lack of labor oversight?
Whole Foods’ mission and values–the company’s ideological underpinning–simple does not PERMIT it to compete with the likes of Walmart, Kroger, or even Trader Joes. These companies were all built on economies of scale as a means to offer consumers the cheapest commodities. It is price and variety that bring shoppers to the big box store. At the corporate level, from the get-go Whole Foods did not function in this manner. Whole Foods aim was to “satisfy and delight” its shoppers by offering the “highest quality natural and organic products,” something that cannot realistically be done while minimizing both consumer cost and the exploitation of resources (human and ecological) and maximizing profit (surplus value). The problems with quality, safety, and ethics of production have taken place SINCE the company has attempted to compete with larger, more efficient, corporate retailers. Whole Foods inability to address the concerns held by the FDA are in effect a result of the bind it has created in attempting to show American consumers they can in fact have it all–health, convenience, and abundance at a cheap price. And, I would argue, the FDA knows this, as it has given the company time to amend their practices before bringing them to the attention of the American public. Due diligence on the part of the FDA is necessary to ensure that a corporation’s name isn’t unnecessarily dragged through the mud. This delayed release of information is, however, a disservice to American citizens in the preservation of capital. This is the constant tension that exists within public agencies that protect both the interests of consumers and the interests of business.
If Whole Foods stuck with its original model, allowing each store to produce and source its own products, it is possible an instance like this could have been avoided. In addition to the greater oversight possible in a smaller production space, labor studies have show that, given more autonomy, workers feel empowered and take greater ownership of their work and care more about the place they work. Several current and former Whole Foods employees have told me that as the company expands, becoming more like other supermarkets, they feel more robotic and less valued. As “team member happiness” plays a role in Whole Foods’ Core Values, diminishing the importance of this value has wider ramifications. When team members feel unheard or unvalued they are less likely to ‘care’ and more likely to ignore, permit, or engage in practices they may disagree with or know are wrong. Smaller scale operations do not equate team member happiness and this does not ensure safe food, and I do not mean to imply a simple equation, but the cold, industrial, heartless and faceless, nature of contemporary food sourcing and production has resulted in myriad food scares, suggesting that Whole Foods’ larger scale production model can only follow the same sad fate, and this is the problem with the FDA’s intervention–it lacks recognition of a larger socially and economically embedded problem with our food system. A problem that is actually feed by American consumers.
I hear stories of people getting tummy rumbles and the like from the Whole Foods hot bar and salad bar on the regular, but this doesn’t even stop those individuals from purchasing those foods in the future. I cannot connect these stories to the current violations at the North Atlantic Kitchen, as I have been hearing them for six years now and as I know much of the food offered on Whole Foods’ hot/salad bar is prepared in house. What I can assert is that consumers value the preparedness of prepared foods, believing in the ‘good’ of producers to provide safe food, as supported by health codes that keep them in check. When we take for granted that our food system is safe, simply because we ‘pay good money’ for things and that we as consumers are entitled to ‘protection’, we fail to see the trappings of the capitalist production within a capitalist democracy.
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