Don’t Knock the Big Guy
I realize that Whole Foods has gotten a reputation for being “Whole Paycheck.” I too have taken to driving 20 minutes to Trader Joe’s when I need bulk items because it’s cheaper and I can’t justify paying some of the prices at Whole Foods (plus it’s just a great place!). While Whole Foods has also gotten knocked around for a big corporation and pushing expensive organic foods that have traveled thousands of miles, I admire their efforts in reaching out to local producers and farmers and for setting an industry standard that has quite revolutionized what we expect to find in our average supermarkets.
While I try to buy my meats only from the farmer’s market, this is not always feasible (or affordable), and recently, while at Whole Foods, they impressed me once more. I was browsing the meat counter (yes, I browse meat), and on the packaged “air chilled” poultry (I still don’t really know what air-chilled means but it sounds pretty neat) there was a label in the corner that said “Step Two.”
So I asked the meat man and he told me all about this new Animal Welfare Rating Whole Foods is implementing–it is program that audits all their farmers and rates them based on the extent to which they promote animal welfare practices in their meats. I got a neat little brochure that told me exactly what the steps mean and what all those terms mean (dustbaths and hock burns). The meat man also informed me that their meats (mostly coming from regional farms) are being audited and the goal is to encourage farmers to reach a higher rating to entice Whole Foods to continue to buy from them. Even more impressively is the fact that their lowest rating (scale of 1 to 5) is pretty decent, compared to factory-raised animals. Step 1 animals still have to antibiotics, animal-by-products, or growth hormones as well as a host of other guidelines.
At a time when “Big Business” almost always gets a bad rap, it is encouraging to see that some big businesses are are trying to set the industry standard for the better. Is Whole Foods making money from this? Probably. But is it necessarily a “bad” thing when one makes a profit while having a greater impact? Making a profit is not inherently evil or bad, and we must separate the issues of corporate greed from corporate responsibility.
At the very least, Whole Foods is trying. That is more than can be said for even the most well-intentioned but apathetic.
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