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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

#241

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

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 worked at an Amazon-Apple-Google-Facebook company when this type of article was published about our project. Our management vigorously denied what was in the article and pointed us to details that were clearly false. Ultimately, as time went by, we realized that although some of the details in the article were false, the general spirit of it was actually correct.

So please take the skepticism that your management is feeding you with a grain of salt. The news media's business model hinges on its reputation of being truthful and accurate. If it was regularly publishing "disturbingly misinformed and one-sided" articles, it would be out of business.

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

#242

Post by sjwright »

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…

The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is great and all, but you also have to factor in the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. How many news articles are you reading which comport with your pre-existing knowledge?

We remember the times when you're sure an article is wrong, we have amnesia towards all the of the other times.

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

#243

Post by sjwright »

dylan604 wrote: post #205
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 find it funny/odd that the eye of sauron has focused its attention at Whole Foods. Depending on the day of the week, especially late Sunday afternoon/evening but also random weekdays when I run in after work, my local Kroger looks very barren in the produce department. So much so that I have sent picture texts commenting about it. This is quite normal behavior when weather events in the area are expected, but latel…

Whole Foods is the retailer equivalent of an in-vogue celebrity. News about celebrities are far more interesting than competent businesspeople.

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

#244

Post by kvanderd »

I have been waiting for this conversation.

I do the grocery shopping in our house 90% in-store shopper (I like to pick out my produce and discover new stuff) 10% online delivery - San Francisco, Franklin Location. Here are the the things that they have gotten really wrong for me...

1. Quality Eggs. This is expensive. It requires sourcing locally and refrigeration at every step. I use to have options to buy from 3+ fantastic pasture raised egg options (almost farmers market quality). This has deteriorated to 1 option. I happily pay $9 a dozen.

2. Don't put the tofu with the dairy. They moved a lot of vegan/vegetarian favorites next to the milk and butter. Customers were complaining while I was in the store. They did not fix it. This might save on energy in the long run but is a tone def move.

3. Staying Local. I will stop shopping at WF if they don't carry local produce. This is expensive and managing each supply chain goes against lowering pricing.

I don't think Amazon wants to keep the demographic. I think they will be a Ralphs or Safeway in 5 years. The next conversation will be quality and keeping the historical whole foods demographic, in these early days I am not sure that is their vision.

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

#245

Post by lsc »

gwbas1c wrote: post #235

One of the biggest factors in me leaving a business: wasting my time. If I repeatedly go to a store and the items I'm looking for aren't there, I stop going. Life's too short to put up with a poorly run business.

huh. On the other hand,there's costco, which quite often doesn't have the same things they had the last time you were there, not because they are out, but because they switched to a different product for that section.

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

#246

Post by Tempest1981 »

trevyn wrote: post #144
Animats wrote: post #19

I found a Whole Foods out of corn on the cob. Corn stores just fine, so that's quite unusual. But Safeway was out, too. Strange, because the US has a corn glut. The thin-inventory thing is getting excessive. The local CVS has been out of distilled water twice, and only had one pack of small paper cups. All those things have a very long shelf life; there's no need to maintain tight stock control.

> All those things have a very long shelf life; there's no need to maintain tight stock control. Holding inventory has an economic cost, even if the inventory has infinite shelf life — the money that bought or manufactured the inventory could be used elsewhere.

And the storage space could be put to better use -- important in cities where cost/sq ft is high.

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

#247

Post by jimmywanger »

gisely wrote: post #234
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…

The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Also, you say you are Whole Foods employee. But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee?

> The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage?

Because it doesn't mean anything. No large company will respond to supply chain questions.

> But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee?

What is the relevance?

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

#248

Post by jimmywanger »

macintux wrote: post #207
tinfins wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTS is really just a collection of pretty common-sense guidelines like don't have more than a certain percentage of inventory in backstock, don't have backstock of stuff that doesn't sell well, keep your backstock organized, etc. There are a few details about it that can be irritating, but the comments from employees in the article are extremely misleading. If they're having a hard time passing their inspections it's…

> no one is failing an inspection for having 1 box facing the wrong way like it says in the article Usually when I see (or say) something like that it's an exaggeration with a significant amount of truth behind it.

> Usually when I see (or say) something like that it's an exaggeration with a significant amount of truth behind it.

So by your logic, any accusation has the cachet of a significant amount of truth behind it?

The press needs clicks. Their needs (more click and revenue) is diametrically opposed to our needs (a somewhat unbiased view of reality).

Just by saying " has to be backed by something" is ridiculous. It can be backed by nothing. As long as you click through, they get what they want.

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

#249

Post by deftnerd »

jimmywanger wrote: post #247
gisely wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Also, you say you are Whole Foods employee. But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee?

> The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Because it doesn't mean anything. No large company will respond to supply chain questions. > But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee? What is the relevance?

I think it's very relevant. The article points out that store employees have tried to bring it up to the new Amazon Management team who was unaware of the problem and that everything looks good on paper, but the view "from the trenches" is very different.

One of the points of the article is that corporate isn't aware of these problems.

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

#250

Post by jimmywanger »

deftnerd wrote: post #249
jimmywanger wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Because it doesn't mean anything. No large company will respond to supply chain questions. > But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee? What is the relevance?

I think it's very relevant. The article points out that store employees have tried to bring it up to the new Amazon Management team who was unaware of the problem and that everything looks good on paper, but the view "from the trenches" is very different. One of the points of the article is that corporate isn't aware of these problems.

I don't think so, because corporate would especially not comment on employee complaints if they were aware of them.

Let's take this from the other side. Your employees have gone to the press, and the press is asking you for your side of the story. Why would you give the press anything to write about? Pictures of empty shelves have much more impact than in-stock statistics. You clam up, try to find the employee (probably disgruntled) and terminate him/her.

In other words, corporate not responding is not a signal one way or another, it's the sign of a mature company. Not to kick a dog, but Uber might have responded and made things worse.

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