Whole Foods is having a tough year. Kroger has made them a distant memory for organic food shoppers, a vegan company says they conspired with the government to block out vegan food, their efforts to rebrand "added sugar" as "evaporated cane juice" were soundly ridiculed and organic farmers protested the "responsibly grown" label, since their trade groups had spent so much money promoting the belief that "organic" and "responsible" were synonymous.
Now People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a group that hates corporations (that don't fund them) even more than they hate people (that don't fund them) are going after Whole Foods because they say the company's 5-Step Animal Welfare Rating System is bogus.
Well, it may not be bogus, but it is misleading. As in the meat in the special rating system is ethically identical to regular food, in the same way evaporated cane juice is just sugar. PETA naturally found a willing consumer who says she felt "misled" by the ratings system on the meat for which she had been overpaying.
Whole Foods is not worried, they casually dismiss it as a lawsuit-happy activist group - ironically the very thing they have benefited from so many times.
It is important to remember that PETA s mission is a total end to animal agriculture and their claims against our business are generated with that specific goal in mind, Beth Krauss, the Northern California spokesperson for Whole Foods, said in a statement.
What? Activists are motivated by ideological agendas and all of their claims are filtered through that? Don't tell donors for Natural Resources Defense Council.
If getting regular old food and being sold a Health Halo over it is afoul of the Unfair Business Practices Act, the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the False Advertising Law, Whole Foods is going to have to shut down, because their whole store is based on an organic food fallacy. There's nothing in there worth the premium.
Except for the macaroni and cheese. That's pretty darn good.
