My interviewees ranged from an organic farmer, a current employee of Whole Foods, an employee at a Farmers Market, and a enthusiastic Whole Foods shopper.  I unfortunately was unable to get a nutritionist and had to rely on my general practitioner, whom I posited a few questions to on my yearly physical.  Their answers differed so much because they were coming from completely different backgrounds.  My doctor, for example, is very old-school and is skeptical of going too crazy into this health food kick.  He told me that he often is approached by patients and asked about diets.  He usually tells them that the best advice is to do something that they can stick with and keep everything simple.  He believes we overmedicate ourselves and go too crazy about what we put into our mouths.  The old adage “Everything in moderation” is as relevant today than ever before.  Compare this with the enthusiastic Whole Foods shopper who says that Whole Foods allows them to shop easily because “everything is natural and good for you.”  I told her about my shopping experience there, and she said that common sense is also needed.  Fair enough.

Given all of this information (sometimes conflicting), I know that I have to just piece the puzzle together in order to get the type of article I want.  For the most part, I found the interview process to be a positive one.  I didn’t like the email format too much because I like to observe people and their mannerisms as they speak to me in order to gauge what intent they have as they are giving me their answer.  I can appreciate, however, that an online interview allowed me to speak to someone thousands of miles away about a subject I, otherwise, wouldn’t be able to discuss.  The email format also allowed the interviewee ample time to come up with clear, succinct answers, and I was given the opportunity at some follow-up questions, which certainly helped.

Even though I liked the live interviews better, I could also see some drawbacks to this format.  I tend to speak quickly and nervously and know that this could take the interviewee back a little bit.  The farmer actually told me that I should slow down a bit as it wasn’t a race.  However, I also was able to converse with the interviewees and sometimes the interviews went places that I didn’t they would go.  This probably wouldn’t have happened if the interviews were constructed under a more rigid structure.  Overall, I believed that my interviews went well and will serve as a valuable wealth of information as I complete the task at hand.

I exercise.  I recycle.  I try to eat right.  But only if it’s convenient for me.  I am learning that this convenience is only making things so much more complicated.  I go to Taco Bell because it’s convenient.  Then I go home to their website and check out their nutritional calculator.  Then I subtract that number from my daily calorie rate based on my metabolic rate which is formulated by an extremely complicated and so on…It’s insane.  The same goes for our attitude towards nature.  We are so far removed from nature that we don’t take a second to appreciate it.  I can’t remember the last time I sat back and appreciated it, but I can tell you that I watched every episode of Planet Earth.  Food should be simple.  Our ancestors did not complicate things with supplements or crazy formulas.  Nor did they have a complicated relationship with nature.  They grew from the Earth and took from the Earth, but they knew to replenish as well.  I have been going around seeking  an easy answer to live responsibly and ethically, but have been looking in all of the wrong places.  With that in mind, here is an article provided by Whole Foods on Twitter about The Ten Most Inspirational People on Sustainable Food.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1572302/eat-onomics-the-ten-most-inspiring-people-in-sustainable-food

So obviously this was a quick, unrefined fictional account of a duck’s death.  We discussed the different things that could affect composition in Margaret Syverson’s The Wealth of Reality.  One of the things that kept getting mentioned was this idea of how much credit should go to the author with the production of the story.  I have never heard a Calvinist approach to writing before, but found it to be an interesting concept.  The conversation led to this idea that writing is not a solitary act.  It involves many different influences and ideas that come from a load of different sources.  They range from time of day, place, instrument used, education, past experiences, attitude, and medium just to name a few.  When I wrote this sad tale, I was in my room, had a tad bit of heart burn, and it was night.  I wrote it with the Yankees game in the background, so I was obviously a little angry in having to see A-Rod’s face again.  Moreover, I thought that if anyone else wrote a duck story, it would be cute and have a nice ending, so I wanted to kill the duck.  This may have just been a fun, little exercise, but it goes to show what the process of writing can entail.

This image is pure bliss for me.  It is the Whole Foods chicken pesto pizza.  Within this triangular slab of dough, is an explosion of flavor and deliciousness.  The roasted peppers and pesto sauce are a marriage made in a Frank Capra movie.  The mozzarella and chicken are perfect feature minor characters.  In all, I can eat this all day.

Is it good for you though?  There are some healthy components.  Pesto has olive oil, which is good for you.  Red peppers-Vitamin C.  That’s good for the immune system.  Mozzarella and chicken-Protein Powerhouses.  Still, I gotta believe that if I eat this every day, I’m going to not want to take my shirt off come beach season.  I mean look at that picture.  That is one big slice of pizza.   You can see the grease shimmering off the wax paper.  It’s still pizza.  Maybe one slice of that every now and then, but there are way better ways to get those ingredients in your diet plan without being forced to eat all of those carbs.  Still, it’s Whole Foods, so it has to be good for you, right.  This will absolutely be one of my shout outs when doing this object.  The idea of how healthy this slice really is for you.  I will also try to seek out information on what the prepared food vs. grocery numbers look like in Whole Foods total business plan, and might explore the concept of the Americanization of relatively healthy foods.  This should be a good food, but there is so much cheese and the portions are so big, I might as well eat a Big Mac.

There were speakers from Virtua, Campbell Soup, PSEG, and ACUA, along with numerous faculty members from several universities.  The speakers from the different companies were discussing what their companies were doing to promote more green business initiatives.  I found Richard S. Dovey from the ACUA to be the most interesting in this respect.  The ACUA is the Atlantic County Utilities Authority.  They are the ones who are in charge of the giant Wind Farm you see right before you enter Atlantic City.  He was discussing how his company is moving forward in the green movement.  He discussed how they only use electric cars when possible and use no flow toilets even though his business is in that of the sewage business.  His main point was that although some may not get it now, eventually they will and you just have to keep pushing through with your agenda.  He had many dissenters with the Wind Farm idea too.

I think this will help in terms of own research because it has really helped me appreciate the need for sustainability and what businesses need to do in order to move towards this concept.  With this knowledge, I will be able to take a better look at Whole Foods’ green marketing materials and really see how much substance there is in them.

Link to the program I designed:

http://www.rowan.edu/colleges/business/prme/events/conference/2010/program/flash/default.html

We agreed to do an email interview in which I would give him ten questions and he would answer them with the chance of a follow-up email by me.  He wanted to remain anonymous, so I was not allowed to name him or his store location.  In order to verify each other, he gave me his number.  I called him, and he seemed legit.  I posited questions to him that ranged from the type of customer to in-store marketing techniques.  He actually gave pretty good answers that were full of candor.  I followed up on two of the questions that I thought he was a bit vague on, and we google chatted for a bit.  I think the email format allowed him to think of his answers better, and as a result, I got a lot of great information.  Good format that I plan on using again.

1) Sara Tessa

I met Sara through her husband Phil.  Phil is a customer at the store I work for and also a doctor of pain management.  Sara works for his practice in Marlton as a registered dietician.  She received her BA in nutrition and RD from Montclair University.  We have a scheduled interview next week at the Starbucks in Shore Hills.  Sara will help me gain a better understanding of food psychology.  She will explain to me why we eat the way we do and what is going on in our psyche as we shop for food.  There seems to be at times, this very negative attitude about food as if eating food is a guilty pleasure.  I want to  draw on her experiences with people and question her on why so much money is spent on nutrition and fitness, yet we find ourselves still an obese nation.  I hope to find out what her thoughts on organic food are.  Is it really that much better for you or just public perception?
2) Daryl Dunagon
Daryl is a high school friend of mine who swears by Whole Foods.  He works for a Farmer’s Market and spends considerable time dealing with organic products.  He has relationships with other farmers in the area through his employer and knows the customer base that swears by farmers markets and CSA’s.  I will meet with Daryl in the near future to have a casual conversation about his job at the farmer’s market.  I would like to hear about what he observes in the customers and find out some of the queries he receives from them.  Daryl is also an avid shopper of Whole Foods,  and I would like to gain a better understanding of why this is the case.
3) Dilip Mirchandani
Professor Mirchandani is a Professor of Management at Rowan University.  I am working with him on a conference on sustainability here at Rowan, so he is a good resource on environmentalism.  I used one of Dr. Mirchandani’s papers in my research to figure out what sustainability is.  Mirchandani argues that there is an urgent need for it, and businesses, governments, and NGOs must work together to make it work.  He argues that the business model of profit that worked so well before also hurt any measures to protect the environment.  John Mackey promotes environmentalism yet is not shy about making a buck.  I would like to gather Dr. Mirchandani’s opinion on Whole Foods and gain a better understanding of what it means to be sustainable.  Is Whole Foods exploiting sustainability or leading the cause?  I will allow Dr. Mirchandani point me in the right direction.  He has agreed to an interview, and we will probably do it after on the conference on March 26th.
4) Team Member X
I was going through the Whole Foods Market employee live journal when I stumbled on Team Member X.  Obviously this is not his real name, but he wanted to stay anonymous because he is still employed with the company.  Team Member X posted many comments on what it means to work with Whole Foods.  He has worked as a cashier, cheese monger, and now as a butcher.  I hope to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a Whole Foods employee.  The hiring process at Whole Foods is a bit unusual, and I would like to find out what else is different about being a Whole Foods employee.  Is it just another retail job, or is there something else to it?  I would also like to find out his experience with the consumer, and what has changed from the beginning of his time there to now.  Team Member X has agreed to an email interview later this month, and I will give him a set of ten questions with the chance for a follow-up.  I’m excited to find out what I learn.
5) Organic Farmer-T.B.D.
My father works for the Department of Agriculture and was recently able to give me a list of farmers in New Jersey that deal directly with Whole Foods.  I have emailed a few of the farmers and am still waiting to hear back, so I do not have a set interview.  However, one I do find one, my goal for the interview will be two-fold.  The first will be the interviewee’s perception of Whole Foods through its dealings.  Are they a good and fair company?  What has Whole Foods done for the organic food market as a whole?  The second will be to figure out what an organic product is.  The definition of an organic product is sketchy at best.  Does it have to be local?  If a product is grown organically, but flown in from Argentina, does that take away from the nutritional qualities of the product?  These are some of the areas I wish to explore with the farmer once I have something definitely set up.  I will update this post when that happens.

The Google Harper’s piece goes into detail about how our data consumption is affecting the Columbia River.  It reveals how the Bush administration policy towards energy companies has created an arms race for data centers.  These data centers are run by electricity that is created through the burning of fossil fuels.  So we come full circle.  Google, a company associated with green and innovation, is at the head of a new movement that will lead to the destroying our environment even further.

This is an example of how an object can have a contradictory history with what it’s supposed to stand for.  In my research, I am finding that this is the case, so I’m interested in seeing what normal everyday objects I can find in the food and agriculture industries that will show me  interesting and maybe checkered histories.

Here is a quote from a blog post that from the Family Farm Defenders that I’m including on the bottom of this post:   “Whole Foods offers a psychological absolution of our excesses. After filling your cart with sinful wine, beer, cheese and breads, you rationalize it’s healthy, so that cancels out the negatives.”  It was a statement by grocery store analyst, David Livingston, in the Capital Times in 2005.  Was this the case?  Did I fall for the Whole Foods Trap?  I think that I might have.  Throughout the store, there are recipe cards and pamphlets discussing sustainability and the healthful benefits of organic foods.  In the 2006 article, “Welcome to Whole-Mart”, Mark T. Harris describes his experience at Whole Foods:

“On a trip to Portland, Oregon in 2004, I wandered into the downtown Whole Foods Market, where shoppers are greeted with soft-hued lighting, high ceilings, and carefully groomed displays of choice desserts and organic foods. The overall effect is more like entering some modern cathedral to upscale consumption, one in which the creed is not suffering, but celebration (although with plenty of tithing at the cash register). Casually dressed clerks add to the sense of Whole Foods as business as unusual.”

His article is very negative and describes Whole Foods as just another Wal-Mart.  His biases are shown throughout and its kind of a turn-off to read only because it’s really not being objective.  I get that it’s an opinion piece, but the slant is too much for me.  It’s just further evidence that I will have to be more neutral as I try to discover how my shopping experience here differed so much from my time at Shop Rite.

http://www.familyfarmdefenders.org/pmwiki.php/LocalFoodSystems/WelcomeToWholeFoodsTheWalmartOfOrganic

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0502-34.htm

Beeman, R. (2001). A green and permanent land : Ecology and agriculture in the twentieth century. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Beeman and Pritchard give a detailed history of farming in the 20th century.  They discuss why there has been such a steep decline in the number of farmers in the country and argue against the trend of GMOs.  They maintain that agriculture is extremely important today because:  1) a food shortage could easily arise from a few bad crop years 2) health concerns should bring a concern over how our food is being produced 3) farmers still constitute a viable part of our community and their survival is of utmost importance.  It will be the rise of the alternative agriculture (organic farming) that will sustain the future of agriculture and ensure its survival.  I will probably only use this book for context on agriculture and sustainability.

Cuddeford, Vijay. (2003). When Organics Go Mainstream. Alternatives Journal, 29(4), 14-19.
Cuddeford’s article may be a few years old, but it does provide some necessary context for the concerns of a growing organic foods market.  Cuddeford outlines a few of those problems.  One would be how much strain it would put on the environment.  A kiwi from Hawaii may be organic, but the carbon footprint from getting that kiwi all the way to the east coast would be severe.  Cuddeford questions whether or not new guidelines will be needed to determine what an organic product is.  He also questions whether farmers will be able to adapt to the demand.  Finally, he questions whether or not customers will care about sustainability when they believe they are doing their part by eating organic.  This article will put those questions in my head and make me wonder as I see the organic food market years later.

Dahm, Molly J., Samonte, Aurelia V., & Shows, Amy R. (2009). Organic Foods:  Do Eco-Friendly Attitudes Predict Eco-Friendly Behaviors. Journal of American College Health, 58(3), 195-202.
Molly Dahm and her colleagues developed a study where they wanted to see how college students felt about organic foods.  They wanted to see how many of them could correctly identify what an organic food was, and they also wanted to know whether the consumption of organic food could be associative with other eco-friendly practices and beliefs.  What they found out was that this was exactly the case.  Almost half of the students in the study wanted an increase in organic food, and Dahm found that those who did eat organic foods were more likely to be green.  I will use this research as empirical evidence on who the Whole Foods customer may be.  It certainly seems as if the college age individual may be a target demographic.  I would also like to see what Whole Foods is doing to market to this audience.

Dean, M., Raats, M. M., & Shepherd, R. (2008). Moral Concerns and Consumer Choice of Fresh and Processed Organic Foods. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(8), 2088-2107. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00382.x.
This was a case study done two years ago to figure out whether or not there was a consumer preference for fresh organic foods over processed organic foods.  Many studies had been done on fresh products, but Dean and others contend that few have been done on processed organic foods, which they say, is a growing staple in supermarkets.  The results of the study showed that consumers generally bought organic to feel positive about themselves.  Dean notes, however, that those who bought the processed food, did so believing that there was some chemical involvement in its production and did not feel as positive as when they bought fresh food.  As Whole Food markets meat, cheeses, and organic potato chips, I would like to gain a better understanding of how the customer feels about these less than healthy food options.

Didier, T., & Lucie, S. (2008). Measuring consumer’s willingness to pay for organic and Fair Trade products. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 32(5), 479-490. doi: 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2008.00714.x.
Didler and Lucie use the double label of Organic and Fair Trade to see if that influences the consumer’s opinion of a product.  Fair Trade distinction has its own guidelines and only certain farmers can get this label on their products.  The study was done between two different chocolates to see if the consumer would pay more for the fair trade/organic product.  The results were conclusive.  The consumer generally would.  Most saw the label as positive, but there were some who were either indifferent or used taste to make their decision.  I will use this study along with a few other of the studies to characterize the Whole Foods customer.  A knock on Whole Foods is its pricing system, so the results of this test reflect why Whole Foods may be able to get away with it.

Harris, Mark T. (2006). Welcome to ‘Whole-Mart’. Dissent, 53(1), 61-66.
This was an article written six years ago that essentially trashes Whole Foods and John Mackey.  The author muses over whether Whole Foods could be considered a movement or just a brand new Fortune 500 company.  He concludes that it is most certainly a Fortune 500 company for its practices.  It gobbles up smaller companies and has become a trust.  The employees of Whole Foods are underpaid as they are a product of the Capitalistic model.  Mackey is a hypocrite because he may act like a father figure to his team members, but he will not pay them right and will certainly not hear talks of a union.  I believe that this piece is a bit harsh, but I will certainly use the information and concerns for my own research.  I would like to see how my experience of Whole Foods differs with Harris’s.  Mackey did change a few things as indicative by the “Food Fighter” article.

Johnston, J. (2007). The citizen-consumer hybrid: ideological tensions and the case of Whole Foods Market. Theory and Society, 37(3), 229-270. doi: 10.1007/s11186-007-9058-5.
There is a lot packed in this article, and I find that I will have to go back to this a few times to get the author’s complete explanation.  The author contends that there is a need for the balance of choice and citizenship, the citizen-consumer hybrid.  A consumer must have choices, but those choices must be within in the scope of the greater good.  The author wonders if Whole Foods allows for the citizen-consumer hybrid to work.  He visits Whole Foods on a number of occasions and ultimately concludes that it does not.  While it does provide a shopping experience that may help the citizen believe he is being ethical, the store does not offer information about what organic means and whether or not the food was locally grown.  The author contends that a strawberry flown in several thousand miles is not for the greater good.

Mirchandani, D., & Ikerd, J. (2008). Building and maintaining sustainable organizations. Organization Management Journal, 5(1), 40-51. doi: 10.1057/omj.2008.6.
The main goal of this article is to provide a general overview of what sustainability is, and what needs to be done in order to make sure we are living in a sustainable global environment.  Mirchandani first provides a brief history of the economic models in capitalism and shows how management practices have affected the environment.  He generally feels that the corporation management model was geared towards profitability rather than sustainability.  He then outlines the present situation and gives key actions that corporations, NGOs, and government must do to ensure that sustainability take place, as it’s a dire concern for the entire planet.  I will use this article for context in order to gain a greater appreciation for why environmentalism is so important.  I may use this in my understanding of the Strong book, Be the Solution.

Paumgarten, Nick. (2010, January 4). Food fighter. New Yorker, 85(43), 36-47.
This was a recent New Yorker profile of John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods.  It outlines the company’s history, it’s success and failures, and where it may be going in the future.  It’s a fascinating look at Mackey.  There is so little I knew about him.  He does not reflect many of his shoppers’ political leanings, and I found his op-ed piece about universal healthcare to be way off from those of his patrons.  His new outlook on Whole Foods in a time of a recession is interesting too.  He believes that Whole Foods has to go on a diet, and offer more affordable products and ditch the yuppie image a bit.  I will use this article for my characterization of Whole Foods, as it is a product of Mackey’s vision.

Pollan, M. (2006). The omnivore’s dilemma : A natural history of four meals. New York: Penguin Press.
I chose to include Pollan’s book in my research because of the “Food Fighter” article.  It makes mention of Mackey’s public debates with Pollan over Whole Food’s portrayal in Pollan’s book.  Pollan asserts that Whole Foods is kind of a phony because it is willing to call long-traveled food organic and is kind of taking advantage of the consumer.  Pollan believes that simplicity is the key and the best food is that which is grown locally and in season.  After his debates with Pollan, Mackey did make some changes to his stores, so I will use my experiences in Whole Foods to see how well Mackey has adapted to Pollan’s model.

Schaub, Laird. (2008). Whole Foods:  Half a Solution?  The Convoluted Politics of Natural Grocering. Communities, (Issue 140), 6-76.
Laird Schaub is the editor for Communities magazine.  It is a magazine devoted to sustainability and cooperation.  He feels that this is essential to communal living.  Schaub was in a predicament.  He was unsure over whether or not to advertise with Whole Foods Market.  His pro/con analysis is the basis of this paper.  On one hand, he poses that Whole Foods does do things for the community and is essential in helping companies that primarily are concerned with making organic products.  On the other hand, he questions their trust mentality.  Whole Foods took out many small organic vendors, and he is unsure if he can support a company that takes the little man out.  This goes against some of the principles of Communities.  This ambivalence is something that I will need to explore further.

Strong, M. (2009). Be the solution : How entrepreneurs and conscious capitalists can solve all the world’s problems. Hoboken  N.J.: Wiley.
Michael Strong wrote Be the Solution to encourage entrepreneurs to run their business for the better good.  He believes that the long term success of a company is by how well it serves the people rather than its profit margin.  It is through free enterprise rather than public service where the greatest potential exists to solve world problems.  John Mackey wrote the foreword for this book.  He argues that companies must see what’s around them and strive to change what it does not like.  He goes back to Whole Foods and says how he did not understand why a company could not do good, while it made money.  This is how he bases Whole Foods’ mission and purpose.  I thought that this was an interesting take on capitalism and will juxtapose it with the pieces condemning Whole Foods as being just another Fortune 500 company.