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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

#131

Post by rdiddly »

gamblor956 wrote: post #93
tinfins wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find it hard to believe that a few stores ran out of bananas or whatever for a day. That's all it would take for a customer to snap a picture. The picture of a meat department cooler with empty slide racks was obviously in the middle of a reset - notice the lack of price tags on all the racks because they were just installed.

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.

Well, it's the result of a decision made by a company that was, at the time, having some difficulty competing, and was desperately trying to cut prices, and then soon thereafter, sold itself to Amazon. So the resemblance is not altogether coincidental.

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

#132

Post by gist »

notatoad wrote: post #123
gist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 li…

I would never tell the cashier because they don't appear to be asking in a way to actually use the reply. I have complained at customer service and generally get something like "I will tell the bakery" or "I will tell the seafood manager".

However they don't write anything down at all. I have had complaints about certain items being out or even things like tops for the oatmeal which they just started to offer or plastic bags and so on. So when I get angry enough and if there is more than 1 thing that upsets me I might say something. I get deer in headlights though.

My general attitude is that I am not going to be their quality assurance department and in particular if they don't have what appears to be a good way to even listen or note what I am saying.

At least at a restaurant when you complain you get something for free for doing so (redone meal, discount, take off bill etc). So they have a system (tell the manager he comes to the table) and you generally get something for your effort. So you don't feel that you are wasting your time or being taken advantage of.

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

#133

Post by specialist »

loeg wrote: post #65
phyller wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could upvote this twice. I know its just anecdotal data, but the rare occasions I have had personal knowledge of news articles they have been grossly inaccurate, every time. Where is the quote from? Edit: from another comment: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...

> Where is the quote from? Michael Crichton. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#Quotes_about_...

Oh. Crichton coined that phrase? That's some potent unintentional irony right there.

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

#134

Post by pbhjpbhj »

dmix wrote: post #105
throwwwwaway9 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So shelves are stocked as they were, say last year, and the media in trying to give the company a bad name? >>Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? When ever you want the truth, just call their PR department.

Corporate could at least explain why this might be happening and what they are doing. A PR department is still better in my books compared to a few disgruntled employees from a few high traffic stores after a major change in both store traffic and company processes. All companies go through growing pains and scaling issues, and I hardly expect much insight on those issues from the teenage stock boy at a Whole Foods.

The "teenage stock boy" isn't supposed to be providing insight, the thread was questioning the facts of whether the shelves are empty.

The stock boy probably has more insight to that than any of us, and anyone at corporate. Indeed I'd expect only their direct manager, if anyone, to have a better insight on what is on the actual shelves.

Corporate will tell you what should be there; stock check will tell you after the fact what was there, ...

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

#135

Post by briandear »

dingaling wrote: post #116
tinfins wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find it hard to believe that a few stores ran out of bananas or whatever for a day. That's all it would take for a customer to snap a picture. The picture of a meat department cooler with empty slide racks was obviously in the middle of a reset - notice the lack of price tags on all the racks because they were just installed.

Why are they resetting a section during shopping hours? Even 30 years ago when I was a student worker in a food store that sort of task only happened after 22:00 when the last customers had left.

Not particularly relevant to the article, but a fun fact is that in France -- there's no such thing as after hours reseting in grocery stores. When the store closes -- everyone goes home.

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

#136

Post by briandear »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #90
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…

Do you work in a store or at HQ? Because the article is right. At least in some stores around SF the stock situation is dire. Some days I can’t even buy whole milk.

Could you buy two half-milks?

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

#137

Post by briandear »

gpsx wrote: post #128

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 Palo Alto one seems really fresh as well.

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

#138

Post by WillyF »

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?

This is my frustration. I'd prefer to shop elsewhere, but the convenience of walking to Whole Food and grabbing whatever I need (or at least trying to) is hard to pass up when the alternative likely requires getting in the car. My strong preference would be to go to multiple shops (butcher, fishmonger, produce store, etc.), but the convenience of Whole Foods usually wins out.

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

#139

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mikeash wrote: post #99
robryan wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not at all. A grocery store being out of any normally stocked product is really unusual. If it happened with any regularity for stuff I wanted to buy, I’d stop going to that store. The concept of “never out” products doesn’t make any sense to me. That should describe everything!

It sounds like they're trying to optimise their just-in-time delivery. I think Lidl/Aldi do this, they have a very small "back area" so almost all goods are on the shelves. This presumably optimises so floor usage and reduces storage costs/wastage and such.

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

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?

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