Whole Foods Hates Capitalism

I discovered today that Whole Foods hates capitalism. Now, I know it’s a popular thing in bourgeois culture to look down on the ills of capitalism, but that’s not what our ire is directed towards today.

Being residents of Pittsburgh, we grew up with Giant Eagle. The Big Bird is usually where it’s at, but it’s always good to look around at your other options as well.

If you live in the city, there are either a whole bunch of grocery stores near you (like in the East End where there is the Market District Giant Eagle, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s amongst other smaller stores) or none (like the Hill District, which is in the process of getting one, which will be great for that neighborhood).

If you’re lucky enough to live in an area, either in the city or outside of it, where you have access to more than one grocery store, I’m sure you, like any good shopper (and American!) have compared prices between stores.

Hey, groceries aren’t cheap and every little bit you can save counts.

In lieu of this, my fiance and I decided that we were going to do some comparison-shopping today. Like any normal people, we don’t have the ability to remember prices on everything we like to buy from a variety of stores. So, using the common sense that we have, we took along some paper and a pen to jot down prices so that we could compare.

Well, while we were in Whole Foods today, we were approached by a manager and told that “Writing down prices is against national store policy” and that we had to stop. I’ve never really been that close to being kicked out of a grocery store before, so I wasn’t thinking to ask to see the policy or where it was posted.

However, if this “policy” was posted, it wasn’t anywhere prevalent that I saw, and an overview of their website reveals no such policy listed.

Their website does mention

We offer value to our customers by providing them with high quality products, extraordinary service and a competitive price.

Well, we must beg the question: how does the customer know what a “competitive price” is when you’re not allowed to price-compare? I was always under the understanding that good customers “shopped with their feet” and would frequent the place that was cheapest. At least, that’s what the tenets of capitalism, and in turn the American economy, were built upon.

However, I guess this isn’t good enough for the bourgeois folks at Whole Foods who don’t really want you to think about what you’re buying and how it’s at least a dollar cheaper at Trader Joe’s or Giant Eagle. Therefore, without further ado, we call upon our Minister of Ire to put Whole Foods in their place.