4 ms·

John Mackey and Whole Foods

29 points by kqr2 17y ago

NathanKP 17y ago
As a local Austin resident I can say that here we feel that Whole Foods is a little expensive. It is kind of a ritzy store for higher income people. At the same time it is a trendy place to work, and applying for a job at Whole Foods means a six month to year wait. Also the other major Austin food store, HEB, is the exact opposite. Most of the HEB stores are aimed at the low income demographic and it is impossible to find anything but the most generic of brands in them. So Whole Foods provides the "luxury" foods as well as organic foods. I don't think anyone here in Austin feels that Whole Foods is "evil".
- yesimahuman 17y ago
  This article had some information on Whole Foods that I had never heard of (I don't shop there). I always thought they were evil because they are turning organic food into a luxury rather than making it the standard. Is this accurate?
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    Organic, sustainable produce is inherently more expensive than mass-market, factory farm-grown produce. Complaining that Whole Foods is expensive is like getting into your Tesla Roadaster and complaining about the price of electricity.
    - yesimahuman 17y ago
      Well the argument I've always heard is that instead of increasing adoption of organic produce by the general public and lowering prices, Whole Foods creates an atmosphere of luxury where these prices are not necessarily validated by the real cost of producing them. Also, Whole Foods wants organics to stay expensive for their own benefit, whereas we would all benefit from larger adoption and cheaper organic produce.
      - NathanKP 17y ago
        But they at least Whole Foods offers organic foods. The other major Austin area food store, HEB, doesn't really offer true organic produce, or at best it offers a limited selection. Larger adoption is a fine goal, but it isn't going to be either helped or stunted by a grocery store. To get more organic food in every store you have to get more organic food growers.
        dnsworks 17y ago
        I think the real solution is to get more of the populace to buy organic food. If the demand is there, the production will quickly follow, especially with mass market consumption.
        deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - dnsworks 17y ago
        Why should they? I mean, they're a business, not a charity, and they operate on razor slim margins. Like most other large grocers, their net income is under 2%.
        yesimahuman 17y ago
        Hence the "evil" designation in many people's eyes.
        replicatorblog 17y ago
        Which is just a reflection of knee-jerk thinking. This "Evil" corporation pays better than companies that require similar levels of education/commitment and also offers employees health insurance. However, these benefits are better than those offered by unionized companies and this is a threat to those unions. So you get a smear campaign even though HF nets out as a far better corporate citizen. A lot of my liberal friends were among those angered by the WSJ editorial. Strangely none of them wanted to peer deeper into how this company with a low/no-skill workforce was able to offer insurance benefits. This company should be studied and held up as an example, not pulled into the borg.
    - amalcon 17y ago
      Compare Trader Joe's. They have a large selection of organic foods, at noticeably discounted prices compared to Whole Foods. The drawback is that they're a bit smaller than Whole Foods, so you might not necessarily have one near you.
- lsb 17y ago
  What do Austin residents think of Central Market, vs Whole Foods?
  - NathanKP 17y ago
    Central Market is cheaper, but it doesn't have the same atmosphere. I tend to go to Central Market more often because its closer than Whole Foods and because they have great live music on the weekends.
  - grendel 17y ago
    Central Market is a gourmet store, it has less focus on all organic. It wins in both variety and quality.
mattmcegg 17y ago
Cliffs notes: Eccentric Whole Foods CEO is a Ron Paul revolutionist while his shoppers are "yuppie gastronomes and fussy label-readers" and they're pissed he's pro-free market healthcare. Meanwhile, he defends "conscious capitalism" and looks to expand his 1% market share.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  Hmm, Mackey is kind of nutty and so is his clientèle. What's the problem? (I'm long time customer myself)
- DaniFong 17y ago
  As an aside, the USA doesn't have anything like free market healthcare. Tax laws have given such an upper hand to health insurance companies, patent laws have given a huge upper hand to big pharma (particularly 'use patents', e.g. patenting a pink Prozac for PMS), and malpractice lawyers have doctors on the defensive. Now, doctors are likely to do something just to keep from being sued, pharma companies are free to charge whatever they want to certain classes of patients relying upon or otherwise using a particular drug (their preferred patient is one who will depend for life on a drug that they have the sole treatment for,) all of them have a huge information asymmetry advantage giving them even more monopolistic pricing power, and patients are often left in the dark, with close to no ability to reason about crucial and extremely expensive decisions (do you know what will be covered in your health insurance plan? Do you know what something will cost before you get the medical bill?) Plastic surgery might be one of the sectors most akin to a free market, since it's typically elective (save for reconstructive surgery) and hence insurance companies have less of a say. But still. --- The existence of a free market is an astonishing myth to be held so commonly. I exhort you to take a close look at a few business sectors, to see where the wealth and power is distributed. How many cities have more than one daily newspaper? In many sectors the advantages of scale are so great that it leads incontrovertibly to a few big players. The power of scale in certain industries is so great that in GE under Jack Welch, they were #1 or #2 in their sector, or they were out. And as soon as there's a monopoly, or an oligopoly, the tendency is to build this huge moat around their business, using whatever means available, and that freezes this supposedly free market even more.
camccann 17y ago
On one hand, this guy is a classic example of why sometimes it's best to stay out of the way and let a professional be the public face of a company. On the other hand, he may be a loose cannon, but at least he's interesting, and you have to give him credit for what he's accomplished, even if he has had some pretty impressive gaffes along the way.

29 points by kqr2 17y ago

As a local Austin resident I can say that here we feel that Whole Foods is a little expensive. It is kind of a ritzy store for higher income people. At the same time it is a trendy place to work, and applying for a job at Whole Foods means a six month to year wait. Also the other major Austin food store, HEB, is the exact opposite. Most of the HEB stores are aimed at the low income demographic and it is impossible to find anything but the most generic of brands in them. So Whole Foods provides the "luxury" foods as well as organic foods. I don't think anyone here in Austin feels that Whole Foods is "evil".

yesimahuman 17y ago
This article had some information on Whole Foods that I had never heard of (I don't shop there). I always thought they were evil because they are turning organic food into a luxury rather than making it the standard. Is this accurate?
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Organic, sustainable produce is inherently more expensive than mass-market, factory farm-grown produce. Complaining that Whole Foods is expensive is like getting into your Tesla Roadaster and complaining about the price of electricity.
  - yesimahuman 17y ago
    Well the argument I've always heard is that instead of increasing adoption of organic produce by the general public and lowering prices, Whole Foods creates an atmosphere of luxury where these prices are not necessarily validated by the real cost of producing them. Also, Whole Foods wants organics to stay expensive for their own benefit, whereas we would all benefit from larger adoption and cheaper organic produce.
    - NathanKP 17y ago
      But they at least Whole Foods offers organic foods. The other major Austin area food store, HEB, doesn't really offer true organic produce, or at best it offers a limited selection. Larger adoption is a fine goal, but it isn't going to be either helped or stunted by a grocery store. To get more organic food in every store you have to get more organic food growers.
      - dnsworks 17y ago
        I think the real solution is to get more of the populace to buy organic food. If the demand is there, the production will quickly follow, especially with mass market consumption.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
    - dnsworks 17y ago
      Why should they? I mean, they're a business, not a charity, and they operate on razor slim margins. Like most other large grocers, their net income is under 2%.
      - yesimahuman 17y ago
        Hence the "evil" designation in many people's eyes.
        replicatorblog 17y ago
        Which is just a reflection of knee-jerk thinking. This "Evil" corporation pays better than companies that require similar levels of education/commitment and also offers employees health insurance. However, these benefits are better than those offered by unionized companies and this is a threat to those unions. So you get a smear campaign even though HF nets out as a far better corporate citizen. A lot of my liberal friends were among those angered by the WSJ editorial. Strangely none of them wanted to peer deeper into how this company with a low/no-skill workforce was able to offer insurance benefits. This company should be studied and held up as an example, not pulled into the borg.
  - amalcon 17y ago
    Compare Trader Joe's. They have a large selection of organic foods, at noticeably discounted prices compared to Whole Foods. The drawback is that they're a bit smaller than Whole Foods, so you might not necessarily have one near you.
lsb 17y ago
What do Austin residents think of Central Market, vs Whole Foods?
- NathanKP 17y ago
  Central Market is cheaper, but it doesn't have the same atmosphere. I tend to go to Central Market more often because its closer than Whole Foods and because they have great live music on the weekends.
- grendel 17y ago
  Central Market is a gourmet store, it has less focus on all organic. It wins in both variety and quality.

mattmcegg 17y ago

Cliffs notes: Eccentric Whole Foods CEO is a Ron Paul revolutionist while his shoppers are "yuppie gastronomes and fussy label-readers" and they're pissed he's pro-free market healthcare. Meanwhile, he defends "conscious capitalism" and looks to expand his 1% market share.

joe_the_user 17y ago
Hmm, Mackey is kind of nutty and so is his clientèle. What's the problem? (I'm long time customer myself)
DaniFong 17y ago
As an aside, the USA doesn't have anything like free market healthcare. Tax laws have given such an upper hand to health insurance companies, patent laws have given a huge upper hand to big pharma (particularly 'use patents', e.g. patenting a pink Prozac for PMS), and malpractice lawyers have doctors on the defensive. Now, doctors are likely to do something just to keep from being sued, pharma companies are free to charge whatever they want to certain classes of patients relying upon or otherwise using a particular drug (their preferred patient is one who will depend for life on a drug that they have the sole treatment for,) all of them have a huge information asymmetry advantage giving them even more monopolistic pricing power, and patients are often left in the dark, with close to no ability to reason about crucial and extremely expensive decisions (do you know what will be covered in your health insurance plan? Do you know what something will cost before you get the medical bill?) Plastic surgery might be one of the sectors most akin to a free market, since it's typically elective (save for reconstructive surgery) and hence insurance companies have less of a say. But still. --- The existence of a free market is an astonishing myth to be held so commonly. I exhort you to take a close look at a few business sectors, to see where the wealth and power is distributed. How many cities have more than one daily newspaper? In many sectors the advantages of scale are so great that it leads incontrovertibly to a few big players. The power of scale in certain industries is so great that in GE under Jack Welch, they were #1 or #2 in their sector, or they were out. And as soon as there's a monopoly, or an oligopoly, the tendency is to build this huge moat around their business, using whatever means available, and that freezes this supposedly free market even more.

camccann 17y ago

On one hand, this guy is a classic example of why sometimes it's best to stay out of the way and let a professional be the public face of a company. On the other hand, he may be a loose cannon, but at least he's interesting, and you have to give him credit for what he's accomplished, even if he has had some pretty impressive gaffes along the way.