Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by Angostura » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

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 I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that there is no stock control issue and those photos are deliberately misleading?

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

#172

Post by saithier » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:40 AM UTC

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…

My local whole foods in SF (Noe Valley) is very frequently sold out of produce I want. Broccoli, spinach, and onions in particular it seems.

Super frustrating.

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

#173

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

fouc wrote: post #156

specialist wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How so?

I'm guessing he is just saying that Crichton's writing was known for sensationalizing science, rather than accuracy.

So he basically did the same thing he criticizes reporters for.

(Which isn't totally fair imo, because the news should be held to a higher standard than a book about a dinosaur park)

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

#174

Post by sudosteph » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

Spoilage due to overstocking isn't just problematic because they have too much stuff sitting in the backroom that will never get sold. It also means they spent too much money buying and shipping that food, with shipping sometimes being the more expensive part (in addition to it being hard on the environment if you think of the fuel used to ship it and emissions it produces).

I'm not their ideal customer, mostly because I prefer cheap, processed, easy to store and make food (think mac-and-cheese). But if I was the type to shop at whole foods due to concerns about ethics and environmental friendliness, I'd be OK with this from that perspective. So long as there are some sort of options available, changing up dinner plans for the week isn't really a huge inconvenience. Maybe they can pitch it that way until they get it better optimized.

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

#175

Post by chiefalchemist » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

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…

This is America's Mainstream Media. This is why our Fourth Estate has failed us.

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

#176

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:50 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#177

Post by meri_dian » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:51 AM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #124

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…

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 uniq…

This conversation has progressed for a while without anyone mentioning that the sentiments expressed are essentially in support of Trump's accusations of fake news. So we can have a conversation on HN in support of Trump's "fake news" and in recognition of severe bias in media that would indicate "fake news" isn't as much a slur as it is a matter of fact statement.

What am I missing?

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

#178

Post by chiefalchemist » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:53 AM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #150

caseysoftware wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 uniq…

This is why I assume most political coverage, especially that from partisans of either party, is mostly nonsense. To get the real story you have to find and read primary sources. Any "news" sites that don't give those I assume are lying, at best, until I have sources to corroborate what they said. The "news" these days is mostly made up of opinion pieces and it spends entirely too much time looking to troll us with c…

It is nonsense. The problem is it's not something most people realize and/accept. They hear "The sky is purple" on the channel they usually watch, said by the pleasant looking and sounding talking head they're so fond of. No need to look up and double ckeck. Yup! The sky is purple. Case closed.

Facebook and Twitter would be ghost towns without this disconnect.

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

#179

Post by d357r0y3r » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

nrjames wrote: post #83

We've had this problem at the Whole Foods near me in Raleigh. It's likely we'll switch grocery stores soon if they don't fix it. For the past 3-4 months, most of the time we do our weekly shopping trip, the shelves are basically bare in the produce section and often there are other popular ingredients we no longer can rely on finding there. It's pretty annoying and has been a frequent topic of conversation between my…

Can't say the Harris Teeter in Raleigh is ever out of anything.

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

#180

Post by mesozoic » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:58 AM UTC

Sounds like possibly growing pains as Amazon fixes WF logistics. I bet they come out the other side way more profitable and Amazon has a huge win from this.