PHILADELPHIA - Shawn Hebb may have one of America's toughest jobs: convincing people that Whole Foods Market can be an economical place to shop.
This week, leading five customers through a store here, he breezed past the triple cream goat cheese, $39.99 a pound, and the fresh tuna, $19.99 a pound, to focus on the merits of beans, chicken thighs and frozen fish.
Then he held up a $1.50 package of tofu. "It looks gross but it's delicious," he said.
Whole Foods Market is on a mission to revise its gold-plated image as consumers pull back on discretionary spending
Read moreYou might expect a shampoo labeled "pure, natural and organic" to be, well, pure, natural and organic. So you may have been shocked - and not a little ticked off - to learn that many of your favorite natural body care products contain a nasty petrochemical linked to cancer.
The bad news broke in March at the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, California, with the release of product tests that found 1,4 dioxane, a probable human carcinogen, in 46 out of 100 personal care products marketed as "organic" or "natural," including top-selling brands such as JASON Pure Natural &
Read morePut a Wal-Mart guy and a Whole Foods guy on the same stage to talk sustainability at a conference in Boulder, and what happens? Interesting things.
Fresh from their morning yoga and organic luncheon, a not particularly friendly audience of execs and marketers heard Wal-Mart senior director of corporate responsibility Rand Waddoups say: "Wal-Mart is not a green company."
Countered Michael Besancon, southwest regional president for Whole Foods Market: "If
Read moreThe organic marketplace is sprouting litigation over fake organic and natural products -- some of them harmful -- that are being sold to unwitting consumers.
In Missouri, several class actions have been consolidated into one suit against the Aurora Organic Dairy Corp., which is accused of selling bogus organic milk that does not meet federal organic standards. The lawsuit also names several retailers that sold the milk. In Re Aurora Dairy Corp. Organic Milk, No. 4:08MD01907 (E.D. Mo.).
In California, the state attorney general recently filed a lawsuit against five
Read moreSACRAMENTO, California (ENS) - California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. has filed a lawsuit against companies that manufacture or distribute body care and household cleaning products that have tested highest for the carcinogenic chemical 1,4-dioxane. The lawsuit was filed May 29 in the Alameda County Superior Court.
Named as defendants are Avalon Natural Products, which makes the Alba brand products; Beaumont Products which makes VeggieWash and Clearly Natural brands; Nutribiotic, which makes grapefruit seed extract personal care products; and Whole Foods Market California
Read moreOAKLAND, CA - Reacting in part to a study released by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) in March of this year, but also based on their own testing, the Attorney General of California has filed a major lawsuit against body care household-cleaning product companies whose Read more
Many organic food fans trust stores that sell largely organic produce. However, the merger of Whole Foods and Wild Oats may be a sign that it's time for the rose-colored glasses to come off.
It is growing harder to make the case that shopping at Whole Foods is socially commendable. Whole Foods has faced well-deserved criticism for its effects on the environment, and its employees.
Whole Foods is an "industrial organic" company that has done away with the local distribution that was the center of the 1960's back-to-nature movement. There is nothing environmentally
Read moreA rising number of governments and retailers are banning plastic bags, or discouraging their use, due to concerns about their environmental impact.
Whole Foods had previously tried to get customers to buy reusable bags, but the concept did not catch on until they began offering them for 99 cents.
Whole Foods officials estimate that the store currently distributes 150 million plastic bags a year.
Plastic Read more
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