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I'm willing to pay extra to eat ethical meats/dairy/eggs and products that generally avoid factory farming. And otherwise eat vegan. By the look of things, Amaz

I'm willing to pay extra to eat ethical meats/dairy/eggs and products that generally avoid factory farming. And otherwise eat vegan. By the look of things, Amazon will eventually get rid of most of these things that Whole Foods made very easy for us. Yes it's more expensive. That's because the cheapest foods that you buy at the cheapest supermarkets are fucking terrible for the livelihoods of animals. Not a fan of this corporate buyout. Amazon clearly has a much different direction in mind for this chain. I wish they bought Kroger instead.

x3n0ph3n3 9y ago
Now you won't have to pay extra? What's your indication that the quality or sourcing of the food is changing? > "Everybody should be able to eat Whole Foods Market quality -- we will lower prices without compromising Whole Foods Market's long-held commitment to the highest standards," Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, said in a statement.
nick_urban 9y ago
Do you have a source for that? Hopefully they'll lower prices by introducing operational efficiencies, and not by lowering ethical standards.
michaelchisari 9y ago
First, you might be interested to know that a lot of Whole Foods' products are not particularly ethical or organic. They carry that stuff, true, but they don't have any kind of total commitment to it store-wide. Second, everyone I know who has ever worked at whole foods could talk for hours about their internal inefficiencies, food waste being a huge one. Their pricing was also almost whimsical, the most extreme example being their $4.99 "asparagus water". My guess is that Amazon took one look at the books and saw that they could easily lower prices without suffering much in the way of profit loss. This doesn't necessarily imply there will be sweeping changes in quality.
- fragsworth 9y ago
  > My guess is that Amazon took one look at the books and saw that they could easily lower prices without suffering much in the way of profit loss. Well, I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong. Here's why: Amazon wants to dominate the world of retail, and Whole Foods currently targets a specific and smaller demographic than "The World". Amazon needs to expand the demographic to reach everyone else. The way they do that is by removing most of the expensive things Whole Foods carries, and replacing them with cheap, less ethical alternatives. This means we'll eventually lose a lot of the things Whole Foods carries. For a lot of vegan and ethical suppliers, Whole Foods is the vast majority of their sales, and they'll just be shut down.
  - michaelchisari 9y ago
    Amazon paid 13.7 billion for Whole Foods, which has 470 stores. If their interest was in low quality, inexpensive supermarket locations, why wouldn't they purchase something like Publix, with its 1,154 stores, for a much cheaper price? Furthermore, if you want guaranteed ethical, organic and fair trade goods, Whole Foods was always more about branding than reality on that front, anyways. Their stuff is better than most supermarket chains, but the independent stores still have them beat by a far margin.
    - iamnothere 9y ago
      Publix is actually employee-owned, so it may not have been possible to broker such a deal. (Your general point still stands though; there are lots of large chains out there, and many would likely welcome a large buyer.)
    - sib 9y ago
      Publix, while it has over 1,100 stores, operates them all in only seven states in the southeast US. Whole Foods, although relatively small, has a nearly national footprint.
  - btian 9y ago
    I don't know Amazon's plans but what you're saying don't make much sense to me. If Amazon wants to target low end grocery retail, why do they acquire Whole Foods? It makes business sense for them to let WFM stay high end, and start a Amazon Basics store to go down market.
kraig 9y ago
ethical meats and dairy?
- PerfectElement 9y ago
  That's what the label says, so it must be true.
  - fragsworth 9y ago
    Your sarcasm implies that you prefer we just abandon any attempt to do right by the animals (or their products) that we eat. Is that what you want?
    - jack9 9y ago
      > Your sarcasm implies that you prefer His sarcasm does nothing of the sort, nor does his statement imply anything similar. I would really check that nerve he seemed to touch. The only interpretation is about the weakness of labeling laws and ethical gerrymandering of commercial interests in the ethical treatment of animals (ie Lip Service).
- quadrangle 9y ago
  There's a continuum. You could raise animals where you actively torture them, raise them in ways that are torturous but unintended and not maximize the torture, take steps to mitigate / reduce torture, avoid torture altogether, go beyond non-torture to actually have them live fulfilled lives as far as their species goes… And then there's ethical issues like the pollution involved in raising animals and how that's handled… It's one thing to insist that all animal products are inherently unethical or that ethics are irrelevant to the topic (most people would not agree with either of those dogmatic views) and another to draw some sort of fuzzy line where you think the efforts at ethics are adequate to call the production "ethical". FWIW, I'm convinced we should be eating insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects And then there's cultured meat which is coming soon and truly bypasses most of the really unethical aspects of meat production…
JacobDotVI 9y ago
Whole Foods has a gross margin around 35% https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/gross_profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/gross_profit_margin Bezos is famous for his mantra around "your margin is my opportunity" Amazon has a lot of margin available here for price reductions. The economic signaling of WF's higher prices is a different topic entirely.
- fragsworth 9y ago
  Gross profit margin is not an appropriate indicator, you need to look at actual profit margin here: https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/profit_margin It's closer to ~3%. When Amazon cuts costs, something about the way Whole Foods does business has to give.

x3n0ph3n3 9y ago

Now you won't have to pay extra? What's your indication that the quality or sourcing of the food is changing? > "Everybody should be able to eat Whole Foods Market quality -- we will lower prices without compromising Whole Foods Market's long-held commitment to the highest standards," Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, said in a statement.

nick_urban 9y ago

Do you have a source for that? Hopefully they'll lower prices by introducing operational efficiencies, and not by lowering ethical standards.

michaelchisari 9y ago

First, you might be interested to know that a lot of Whole Foods' products are not particularly ethical or organic. They carry that stuff, true, but they don't have any kind of total commitment to it store-wide. Second, everyone I know who has ever worked at whole foods could talk for hours about their internal inefficiencies, food waste being a huge one. Their pricing was also almost whimsical, the most extreme example being their $4.99 "asparagus water". My guess is that Amazon took one look at the books and saw that they could easily lower prices without suffering much in the way of profit loss. This doesn't necessarily imply there will be sweeping changes in quality.

fragsworth 9y ago
> My guess is that Amazon took one look at the books and saw that they could easily lower prices without suffering much in the way of profit loss. Well, I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong. Here's why: Amazon wants to dominate the world of retail, and Whole Foods currently targets a specific and smaller demographic than "The World". Amazon needs to expand the demographic to reach everyone else. The way they do that is by removing most of the expensive things Whole Foods carries, and replacing them with cheap, less ethical alternatives. This means we'll eventually lose a lot of the things Whole Foods carries. For a lot of vegan and ethical suppliers, Whole Foods is the vast majority of their sales, and they'll just be shut down.
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  Amazon paid 13.7 billion for Whole Foods, which has 470 stores. If their interest was in low quality, inexpensive supermarket locations, why wouldn't they purchase something like Publix, with its 1,154 stores, for a much cheaper price? Furthermore, if you want guaranteed ethical, organic and fair trade goods, Whole Foods was always more about branding than reality on that front, anyways. Their stuff is better than most supermarket chains, but the independent stores still have them beat by a far margin.
  - iamnothere 9y ago
    Publix is actually employee-owned, so it may not have been possible to broker such a deal. (Your general point still stands though; there are lots of large chains out there, and many would likely welcome a large buyer.)
  - sib 9y ago
    Publix, while it has over 1,100 stores, operates them all in only seven states in the southeast US. Whole Foods, although relatively small, has a nearly national footprint.
- btian 9y ago
  I don't know Amazon's plans but what you're saying don't make much sense to me. If Amazon wants to target low end grocery retail, why do they acquire Whole Foods? It makes business sense for them to let WFM stay high end, and start a Amazon Basics store to go down market.

kraig 9y ago

ethical meats and dairy?

PerfectElement 9y ago
That's what the label says, so it must be true.
- fragsworth 9y ago
  Your sarcasm implies that you prefer we just abandon any attempt to do right by the animals (or their products) that we eat. Is that what you want?
  - jack9 9y ago
    > Your sarcasm implies that you prefer His sarcasm does nothing of the sort, nor does his statement imply anything similar. I would really check that nerve he seemed to touch. The only interpretation is about the weakness of labeling laws and ethical gerrymandering of commercial interests in the ethical treatment of animals (ie Lip Service).
quadrangle 9y ago
There's a continuum. You could raise animals where you actively torture them, raise them in ways that are torturous but unintended and not maximize the torture, take steps to mitigate / reduce torture, avoid torture altogether, go beyond non-torture to actually have them live fulfilled lives as far as their species goes… And then there's ethical issues like the pollution involved in raising animals and how that's handled… It's one thing to insist that all animal products are inherently unethical or that ethics are irrelevant to the topic (most people would not agree with either of those dogmatic views) and another to draw some sort of fuzzy line where you think the efforts at ethics are adequate to call the production "ethical". FWIW, I'm convinced we should be eating insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects And then there's cultured meat which is coming soon and truly bypasses most of the really unethical aspects of meat production…

JacobDotVI 9y ago

Whole Foods has a gross margin around 35% https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/gross_profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/gross_profit_margin Bezos is famous for his mantra around "your margin is my opportunity" Amazon has a lot of margin available here for price reductions. The economic signaling of WF's higher prices is a different topic entirely.

fragsworth 9y ago
Gross profit margin is not an appropriate indicator, you need to look at actual profit margin here: https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/profit_margin It's closer to ~3%. When Amazon cuts costs, something about the way Whole Foods does business has to give.