Ruby's dashboard

Our local HEB has the WHOLE FOODS section/mentality. I really like their meat products. It is the only ground beef that I will eat. The DOWN side of all of the freshness happening there is that they must be destroying a lot of food. I wish that the grocery stores would DONATE close-dated and "not perfect" produce to charity! Many stores in Michigan where I lived before now would donate to help with the hunger issues.

I am EXHAUSTED from trying to feed my family the highest quality, nutritious foods without going bankrupt. I am forced to shop at about 5 different stores that do NOT carry groceries as the primary attraction. I must do this because Whole Foods prices are not accessable for all foods. I can get a box of mini wheats at "other" stores for $2.00, OR Whole Foods/HEB for $4.99 and up!

Bio fuels are great, but they are making the foods that children live on extremely expensive. Milk, cereal, corn based foods, grains, wheat, etc. are off the charts. Our basic grocery bill has gone up about $400.00 PER MONTH!

Even Sam's club is not better. Whole Foods needs to realize that we will buy LESS organic, LESS nutritious foods and start feeding our families Ramen noodles if they do not reduce costs.

I don't need all of the fanfare! No balloons, fancy hats, gormet looking plates etc. under my lunchmeat. Just quality without the wine tasting please!

I HATE TELLING MY CHILDREN THAT THEY CAN NOT HAVE MORE FRUITS AND VEGGIES BECAUSE THEY COST TOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!

I've visited California. With all the tasty edibles available I probably wouldn't shop Whole Foods as much as I do in southeastern PA. Still, that grilled chicken salad I mentioned is as good as anything I had in San Francisco. There are plenty of duds in their selection, and it can be obnoxious when you land one of them, but I'd be in hell if I had to shop at a traditional grocery store out here. – Lewis, on August 14, 2008 03:30

^^that's really true....but then again I live in California...and there are many places to get excellent prepared food. – John O'Day, on August 14, 2008 00:26

Medium-grade cafeteria food? I've been addicted to a Mediterranean grilled chicken/two kinds of olives/feta/red pepper/red onion salad at WF since the spring. I don't know what kind of delicacies you're used to chowing down on, but Whole Foods has plenty of things to like. In Pennsylvania, 98% of the grocery stores want to sell you ice berg lettuce with shredded carrots and canned vegetables at their bars, and even at more progressive stores like Wegmans they still use hydrogenated oil like it's going out of style. Whole Foods isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than no Whole Foods.

i don't really know about why they do that. they do use fresh fish, as it is the standard of the company. it is true that the company has stopped allowing people to take product home, and it bothers me too. but at least here, our excess is donated to local women's shelters and homeless shelters.

Good point! – Amy Muller, on July 20, 2008 18:29

Just skimming around this old topic and want to say that Whole Foods must be doing something right, i.e. treating their employees very well. Jessie has stayed with them since 1997 and Slaton since 2001!

Thor shop for groceries?? Haha! ;) – Amy Muller, on July 02, 2008 22:10

I love it how Amy and Thor (a couple) banter with each other about Whole Foods on Get Satisfaction... Don't you guys talk to each other when you're out shopping for groceries??? :P – Ben Metcalfe, on July 02, 2008 21:58

Hey Ruby, I just wanted to chime in and personally thank you for asking this question. I've worked at Whole Foods Market for 7 years and I don't think I've ever seen a better response to this issue than what Jessie's -- so a BIG thank to Jessie too!

As I'm sure you can agree after reading his well-informed responses, spoilage and what is done with it is a complex issue involving local, state and federal laws, along with the specific policies of Whole Foods Market and those of the non-profits (shelters, food banks, etc.) that our stores across the country partner with. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our business there will always be waste. It's definitely important to note, however, that waste impacts our bottom line and therefore it is always in our best interest to improve projections and work limit waste across all product categories. While it's not easy to accurately project, I know for a fact that those team members responsible are working very hard to continuously improve projections and limit waste.

Anyway, thanks, again for your question and keep 'em coming!

Ok it makes sense now. It is unfortunate that few had to ruin it for the others. Thank You for taking the time to answer this for me in detail. I really don't have any suggestions right now as honestly, I have been guilty of he same "crime" at various crappy un-wholefoods-like food service/retail jobs a decade ago when I was a teen, so I know there will always be a few that ruin it for the rest.

I know it can be a complicated process to oversee that only the food that will be composted becomes available for free or at a discount vs. employees having the say of whatever they want being discounted - to avoid "mis-discounting" there would have to be some big brother type overseeing it or a stringent logging system and well that is probably not worth the effort for wholefoods in comparison to composting. Possibly run a trial period where all the employees are informed of the past events and cause for the rule change and that if there is abuse of the system it gets sacked again. It seems that all the new employees hired since the new lamar store has opened should be given a their chance to cooperate until shown otherwise. An issue may arise where future employees end up ruining it and so on...I don't know how much faith I have in it working - It would be great if it did though. Oh what a discountelicious WF's buffet Utopia it would be!.

Thanks for the answers!

Ruby, first I want to appreciate you for caring. Most people probably don’t think about this issue while they are serving themselves at the hot bar. However, this is a very legitimate concern and I completely understand why you would rather the product go to team members than to compost. In the past it was the standard procedure. I used to work at the old Sixth street store across the street from the new location and loved working at night because at 8:00 pm they would make an announcement that all the hot bar food was available at a significant discount. Additionally, we used to be able to get old fruit, damaged grocery items, etc. all for a discount. Unfortunately, the reason we don't do it anymore is a case of a few bad apples ruining the bunch. (No pun intended) :)

What happened was a few people started to discount items that were perfectly fine for regular sale or they would purposely damage the items so that they could get it for next to nothing. This problem was happening companywide and teams started to see their spoilage going way up. So the solution was to stop giving away or selling discounted items.

With that said, I would like to add that the left over food is stored and reused for a day or two, depending on the product. We always check to be sure it is still to meets our standards for quality and freshness. This process significantly lessens the amount that we send to be composted.

Believe me, I really miss the days of discounted products, especially now that food prices are so high, but we try and stay within projections so as to limit what gets tossed and compost it instead of sending it to landfills. In my heart I really wish we could give it to the homeless shelter, since those are the folks that really need it, but as I said before, they won't take product that isn't packaged and sealed. If you have any suggestions, now that you know why we can’t discount to team members, I would love to pass them on. – Jessie

Thank you for quelling my curiosity.

So the employees don't get their picks of the buffet leftovers? I suppose the salad-type foods can be put away and put out the next day - but regarding the "hot" buffet - It looks like they always set new stuff out the next day. It would make me feel better if the employees benefitted from the leftovers rather than the compost (no I don't work there, or know anyone who does - hence why I have no answers my questions here! : ).

Thank You in advance!

Hi Ruby, First of all let me say that you made me laugh with the ‘theme park’ comment. You really can get sensory overload if you aren’t ready for this store. Just remember, it is the Flagship store and very few of the stores in our chain are even close to that size.

Regarding your question, the pies and cakes are given a specific shelf life depending on the type of cake it is; generally it will be five days. After that point we turn it over to Austin Waste along with any other appropriate materials for composting. The packaged bread is donated to Caritas or the homeless shelter. These local organizations take food donations but will not take opened or unpackaged products because of safety and liability concerns. These groups will also take the culled produce that we don’t reuse in the store.

As you point out, we can’t possibly sell all these pastries before they go bad and you’re right. Our team members will look and see what products they may be going ‘long’ on and turn them into a sample to try and sell some before they expire. Also, like I said in my response about the sushi, we really try to make only what we plan on selling. We don’t want to waste product, because it’s not good for the environment or our bottom line.

I want to point out that our composting program is really great. We buy the finished compost back and resell it in our stores in the floral department. This way it comes full circle to our customers.

Please let me know if you have any other questions and I will get you an answer. - Jessie

That's a great question, Ruby. Actually, while it *is* related to this current topic, it kind of deserves it's own topic so that more people will see it. :) Feel free to click the "start a topic" button at the top if you want to post your question as a new topic. – Amy Muller, on May 19, 2008 20:36

I love WF, but I live in Austin where their flagship store/WF "themepark" is. My question is this - I 've always wondered if they bring the leftover buffet food to the shelter's or do the employees get it? In particular the awesome cakes and little mini cake things in the bakery - they cant possibly sell all those before they go bad. Where does it all go?