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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

#21

Post by tinfins »

coding123 wrote: post #9

Wow, I wonder how new this system is - I've been to Whole foods in the last 3 days and it looked nothing like that picture. I wonder if these images are extreme cases that happened after 1 strange situation, and the article makes it look like a nationwide epidemic.

There are a few things that happen every New Year that combine to contribute to shortages:

- Distributors have changed delivery schedules to work around New Year's Eve and Day.

- There's a large increase in demand for produce and some other ingredients (resolutions)

- Employees at the store and regional level take a few more vacations than usual, since we aren't able to during much of the holiday season. People also tend to plan the hell out of ordering for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but relax too much by New Year's since they figure crunch time is over. This is made worse by the relatively short tenures of most store buyers, since they either move up or quit relatively quickly.

So I would say there probably was a nationwide spike in out-of-stocks spread out over a few days. But it isn't really because of OTS.

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

#22

Post by com2kid »

I hate to be that guy to complain about the website, but someone BI is making my entire scroll bar vanish and causing me to be unable to scroll the article at all, using arrow keys, mouse wheel, or page up/page down.

That must be some truly impressive JS.

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

#23

Post by opportune »

coding123 wrote: post #9

Wow, I wonder how new this system is - I've been to Whole foods in the last 3 days and it looked nothing like that picture. I wonder if these images are extreme cases that happened after 1 strange situation, and the article makes it look like a nationwide epidemic.

It's businessinsider, so probably. It's like the ignorant and uninformed tabloid rag of "business" news

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

#24

Post by cratermoon »

dekhn wrote: post #4

business insider is a click farm, this is not a crisis of food shortages, that's just click bait.

The title is definitely misleadingly alarmist. A more sober look at the situation from Forbes[1] still points to order to shelf being the core problem, even if the reality of empty shelves is much less serious than BI screams.

1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronaldholden/2018/01/11/stalkin...

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

#25

Post by dajohnson89 »

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…

for someone who is well-informed on the the subject, it's amusing that you offered zero information in your comment.

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

#26

Post by ashelmire »

javadocmd wrote: post #10

A business perfectly optimized w.r.t. waste will have zero inventory and zero sales.

Exactly. That or custom building/sourcing every customer's purchases are the only way you can optimize purely for waste reduction. What they should be optimizing for is maximum profit, not minimum waste.

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

#27

Post by ves »

javadocmd wrote: post #10

A business perfectly optimized w.r.t. waste will have zero inventory and zero sales.

That state is a local minimum; “zero sales” is a sufficient but not necessary condition, taken with “zero inventory,” which is necessary but not sufficient.

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

#28

Post by praneshp »

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…

> it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is.

Redundant, you are reading Business Insider.

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

#29

Post by slothguy72 »

coding123 wrote: post #9

Wow, I wonder how new this system is - I've been to Whole foods in the last 3 days and it looked nothing like that picture. I wonder if these images are extreme cases that happened after 1 strange situation, and the article makes it look like a nationwide epidemic.

On how new the system is - "... a buying system called order-to-shelf that Whole Foods implemented across its stores early last year."

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

#30

Post by tinfins »

dbatten wrote: post #16
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…

"Whole Foods did not respond to several requests for comment on this story."

Ah, I missed that, sorry.
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