The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the government agency that’s responsible for managing fisheries in U.S. waters, is asking for public comments on proposed policies for addressing what’s known in the industry as illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing (a.k.a. pirate fishing) and bycatch (unintentional or incidental catch) of protected species like whales and sea turtles. Okay, there are a lot of acronyms in that first sentence (I even left some out) but the point is: as citizens we have an opportunity to express our opinion about how these public resources are managed.
Here’s mine: Hats off to NMFS for addressing these critical issues! Together with my colleague, Margaret Wittenberg – Global Vice President of Quality Standards and Public Relations, we’ve submitted comments to NMFS letting them know that Whole Foods Market cares about sourcing seafood sustainably and minimizing the impacts of fishing on the marine ecosystem. To source seafood right, though, we need strong regulations that address illegal fishing because as a grocery store, we can’t police the oceans.
We’re urging our fishery managers to do everything possible to provide the tools necessary to help us avoid sourcing from fisheries that catch fish illegally or take protected species. For example, denying port privileges to nations fishing illegally and prohibiting the import of fish products in violation of these rules would be a huge step forward; it would put the onus of responsibility on nations to fish responsibly, rather than on a grocery store like Whole Foods Market to figure out who is fishing legally and who isn’t. Finally, there may be fisheries that operate legally within a country that is found to be engaging in illegal fishing in other sectors. Consequently, we agree with NMFS’ approach to have alternative certification procedures that allow products to be certified on a shipment-by-shipment or shipper-by-shipper basis.
One of the most important things Whole Foods Market does is expressed in our first Core Value: Selling the highest quality natural and organic products available. You’ll find that statement on our walls, our website, our brochures, etc. But what do “natural” and “organic” mean, and who sets the definition? I’ll start to get into the nitty gritty details of these questions in this post. For background, you may want to check out my introduction to the topic of quality standards from last week. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been avoiding this post. Not because I don’t love talking about what I do, but because I couldn’t figure out how to shrink this topic – an overview of our Quality Standards – into an easily digestible post. But then our lovely blogmistress (Paige Brady) told me I could write a series rather than a single post. Yeah!
Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, she hit me with this bombshell: Could you use the first post in the series to explain our Quality Standards in a way that an 11-year-old can understand? What!?
Seems that she was in our downtown Austin store over the weekend with her daughter’s 11-year-old friend, who had never been to our store before. She was thoroughly enthralled and amazed – remember your first step inside our store? Anyway, the friend asked, “Is everything here organic?” and Paige said “no” but that everything was natural. And then fumbled through various attempts at explaining what natural means – realizing as she rambled that a typical 11-year-old doesn’t have the background to understand how much junk is in our conventional food supply. Paige eventually came up with this: “You won’t find blue ketchup here because ketchup comes from tomatoes and tomatoes aren’t blue in nature.” And the friend got it: “So, ketchup is red here?” Yes. Read the rest of this entry »
Michael Franti is an American poet, musician, and composer. He is the creator and lead vocalist of Michael Franti & Spearhead, a band that blends hip hop with a variety of other styles including funk, reggae, jazz, folk, and rock. He is also an outspoken supporter for a wide spectrum of peace and social justice issues. And he is today’s guest blogger!
Back in the late 80’s, I hopped in a van with my band mates. Sleeping on floors across America, eating at truck stops, or on some lucky nights, enjoying a plate of tour spaghetti made with love and generosity by the people who loaned us their couches for the night. Eating healthy on the road took a bit of creativity back then. Often the most nutritious meal at a truck stop (filled with processed nacho cheese dip, soda pop and candy) was a can of sardines and some saltine crackers (which I would trade off with the occasional peanut butter and crackers). A truck stop salad was a wedge of iceberg lettuce smothered in thick Thousand Island dressing with a tomato slice and an olive thrown on top. Sometimes the only way to make my own “salad” was to order a burger with all the fixings and just eat the fixings!
Okay, we’re cheating a little this week and perhaps this post would be better named “What We’re Watching…” ’cause that’s been the preferred method of media consumption this week. A friend of mine reminded me of some excellent TED | Talks that I’d encouraged him to listen to a few months back.
But of course, as inspiring as these talks were, I was hungry for more and just yesterday, stumbled upon TED’s new lists, which allow users to order talks based on user ratings on criteria such as “most beautiful”, “most jaw-dropping”, “most ingenious” and “funniest.”
Every week I see dozens of myths and misunderstandings about food and our company come across my desk, confused thoughts ranging from “Everything Whole Foods sells is organic” to “Canola oil is a secret poison” to “Whole Foods Market is owned by Paul Newman.” This is the first in a series of posts aimed at sharing – and clearing up – some of the more popular misunderstandings floating around out there. Through these examples, I’d like to illustrate the lengths we go to “do the homework” about natural foods and to make sure that there’s nothing in our products that you’d be surprised to find there. If you have any particular questions or topics you want to see covered, post a comment down below and let me know what you want to hear about.
Who we are and what we do
Look around near the doors of any one of our stores and you’ll likely find our commitment to “Selling the Highest Quality Natural and Organic Products Available” painted directly on the wall. This promise, the first of our company’s core values, seems simple at first glance, but becomes complicated once you start to consider the words “natural” and “organic” and what they really mean. I’ll save “organic” for another post, but what does “natural” mean, and who decides? Well, we do, and we take the job very seriously.
Hear more about issues surrounding our food supply in this podcast interview from last August with Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini centered around his book, Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should be Good, Clean, and Fair.
About the only things sprouting up on lawns this summer in central Texas are “Alarm Stage Drought” signs. The grass is crispy, some trees feature the yellow hues of autumn, and county officials and parents will be closely monitoring the few fireworks used by neighborhood kids this year. Our typical blast-furnace-August weather started in mid-May this year, and we’ve not had more than a flirty little spatter of rain since. Our June was the hottest recorded in Austin since 1854, with an average high of 99.4 degrees. Even our scrappiest cur-dogs won’t go out in this year’s noon-day sun.
In a wide ranging interview posted to his blog Chews Wise, Samuel Fromartz, author of Organic, Inc: Natural Foods and How They Grew, talked to Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey about “the Wild Oats deal, rising food prices, the company’s soon-to-be-launched humane meat ratings system, and the prospects for sustainable seafood.” This is a great read for anyone interested in the natural foods industry and Whole Foods Market in particular. Make sure to read both parts of the interview.
Check out this 20 minute video of Mark Bittman’s talk at the EG (Entertainment Gathering) Conference from TED. (TED – Technology, Entertainment, Design – has a lot of great stuff from a wide variety of thought leaders.) TED describes this piece as “a fiery and funny talk” where “New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what’s wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk.” Do you agree with Mark’s suggestions for necessary changes?
Welcome to Whole Story, the official blog of Whole Foods Market.
Don’t know us? In a nutshell, we are the world's leading natural and organic grocer and we’re passionate about healthy food and a healthy planet. Learn more about us.
We’re lucky to have a whole bunch of smart, passionate people doing incredible things in areas like organics, supporting local growers, green practices, fair trade, micro-lending and all kinds of food related stuff. We’ll use this blog to share some of the cool things going on around here.
Of course, what makes this blog really exciting is YOU — so join the conversation!
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I’ve been avoiding this post. Not because I don’t love talking about what I do, but because I couldn’t figure out how to shrink this topic – an overview of our Quality Standards – into an easily digestible post. But then our lovely blogmistress (Paige Brady) told me I could write a series rather than a single post. Yeah!
Every week I see dozens of myths and misunderstandings about food and our company come across my desk, confused thoughts ranging from “Everything Whole Foods sells is organic” to “Canola oil is a secret poison” to “Whole Foods Market is owned by Paul Newman.” This is the first in a series of posts aimed at sharing – and clearing up – some of the more popular misunderstandings floating around out there. Through these examples, I’d like to illustrate the lengths we go to “do the homework” about natural foods and to make sure that there’s nothing in our products that you’d be surprised to find there. If you have any particular questions or topics you want to see covered, post a comment down below and let me know what you want to hear about.
