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Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

businessinsider.com

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Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#121

Post by dhimes »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #113
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show b…

IkmoIkmo, that's an exceptionally insightful and informative reply. I've never heard of that effect before, but the gist of the idea has bothered me for a long time. I was about to reply to tinfins "And now realize that most news stories are probably just as misinformed." I hate to be so skeptical of the mainstream media, but it's hard not to whenever they report on something I know about they seem to get it all wron…

I heard this called the "Gell-Mann Paradox."

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#122

Post by onli »

tinfins wrote: post #108
gamblor956 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that a few stores ran out of bananas or one item for the day. Take a look at the pictures: entire sections like produce are basically empty. The only time I've seen shelves that bare were at Kmart and Sears locations before they went bankrupt and shut down.

I took another look at the pictures. Notice all those stores where whole sections are out are in the Northeast. Probably they missed a delivery or two because of the weather. Plus during extreme weather grocery stores get shopped hard. There was one picture of an empty banana set with a pineapple in the wrong spot - that's what I was referring to before. The sole picture in San Francisco was the reset I mentioned.

But that's exactly the problem the article describes: That the moment something goes wrong the stores don't have any reserves anymore, because the system is too strictly set on reducing costs and spoilage, seemingly with a total disregard to consumer satisfaction and overall profit. Add to that crazy-sounding control schemes - which maybe is kinda normal in a country like the US without real employee protection laws, but is unthinkable in less free market capitalist societies.

Not sure why you defend your employer here. If the problem is real - which I'm in no position to judge - it would be in his best interest to notice it.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#123

Post by notatoad »

gist wrote: post #88
WillyF wrote: post #43

I live less than a five minute walk from a Whole Foods (Chicago - North Ave), so I shop there quite a bit even though I'm not a huge fan of the store. While I haven't seen empty shelves like the photos from the article, I have become frustrated by how often they are out of the items that I'm looking for. Four or five straight trips they didn't have rosemary, and it took a third trip and asking someone who was stockin…

> "Did you find everything that you were looking for?" They don't do that at the store I go to anymore either but it has nothing to do with inventory (which as I mentioned in another comment is the same as it's always been). Could be that they just discovered that it had little upside but some downside. As a customer I sometimes get annoyed being asked that question all the time.

i've always wondered who actually answers "no" to that question.

If i've made it to the checkout, i've made the decision that i've found everything i'm going to purchase today. even if it wasn't everything i originally came for. If i needed help finding something, i would have asked for help before i got to the checkout.

I'm not going to stand in line at the checkout only to not actually check out, and hold up the line behind me while the cashier helps me find something.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#124

Post by caseysoftware »

irrational wrote: post #77
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show b…

Heh, it is amusing that the quote ends with "far-off Palestine". In the mid-90s I returned from living in the middle east for 6 months as a student (Jordan, Israel and Egypt). I personally witnessed an event and upon returning I was reading about said event in a US newspaper and was shocked at how wrong it was. This was the first time I experienced this effect. However, instead of turning to other parts of the paper…

My wife was a political reporter in DC, covering the Hill, the Pentagon and White House at various times. One time we were watching CNN and they mentioned a briefing at the Pentagon and she noted she was in the same one. Halfway through the coverage, she jumped up and said "that's not what they said!" I was confused.. she went back to her bag and handed me her notebook which contradicted their coverage.

It's not unique to any particular medium, news source, or person. Many, many people have an agenda and/or ignorance and portray things accordingly.. not always malicious but incomplete at best, wrong at worst.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#125

Post by nhebb »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #37
tinfins wrote: post #7

I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. The author seems to have talked with 10-20 disgruntled employees at a few stores nationwide, and a few customers on top of that. Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Food…

> I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show b…

Someone in the LA Times / union thread referred to journalists as "knowledge workers". With Gell-Mann Amnesia in mind, I thought, "Well, that's being generous".

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#126

Post by dhimes »

robryan wrote: post #94
phkahler wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: Order-to-shelf "has transformed the inventory levels that we have in the back room, essentially clearing them out so that we're mainly focusing on what we call our never-outs, the key items that we need to have in stock all the time in our stores," If your item isn't on the "never out" list I suppose they don't really care about gaps in availability. The problem with that isn't just customer satisfa…

Here in Australia if a supermarket was regularly out of things that they normally stock I would shop elsewhere. Are people in the US more accustomed to going to multiple shops to get groceries?

Sometimes I do, for specialty items. I think we were just giving the stores the benefit of the doubt because of the hurricanes and blizzards(I'm in the Boston area).

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#127

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

ju-st wrote: post #109
irrational wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, it is amusing that the quote ends with "far-off Palestine". In the mid-90s I returned from living in the middle east for 6 months as a student (Jordan, Israel and Egypt). I personally witnessed an event and upon returning I was reading about said event in a US newspaper and was shocked at how wrong it was. This was the first time I experienced this effect. However, instead of turning to other parts of the paper…

From where do you get information when you don't read news articles?

I've gone for months and years long periods of avoiding the news, including sites like this, and live has always been qualitatively better during those periods.

I'm not convinced I understand what purpose being informed of global politics or local dramas serves, other than maybe having something to talk about with friends and colleagues.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#128

Post by gpsx »

I usually go to Whole Foods in Mountain View and I don't see shelves like that. In fact, I used to complain that some of their things like meat and dairy are not as fresh as I'd like. It has been better roughly since the time of the Amazon acquisition, which surprised me. Maybe it is because of this stock keeping system.

I had never noticed those freshness problems at the Cupertino Whole Foods store, which is one of the nicer ones I have been to.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#129

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ju-st wrote: post #109
irrational wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, it is amusing that the quote ends with "far-off Palestine". In the mid-90s I returned from living in the middle east for 6 months as a student (Jordan, Israel and Egypt). I personally witnessed an event and upon returning I was reading about said event in a US newspaper and was shocked at how wrong it was. This was the first time I experienced this effect. However, instead of turning to other parts of the paper…

From where do you get information when you don't read news articles?

One can be wrong about events that you witness yourself. We witness things through physical limitations and the biased lens of our own minds.

IMO the correct response is not to reject the source but to give it less weight, add other sources and realise you'll only ever get an approximation of the truth at best.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#130

Post by Aloha »

tinfins wrote: post #7

I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. The author seems to have talked with 10-20 disgruntled employees at a few stores nationwide, and a few customers on top of that. Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Food…

So, what is the actual cause?
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