Whole Foods Market in mea culpa

New York -- The top executives at Whole Foods Market have issued a mea culpa via social media in regards to an investigation that found instances of incorrectly priced products at their stores in New York City.



Whole Foods co-CEOs Walter Robb and John Mackey apologized in a YouTube video that appeared on Whole Foods YouTube channel on July 1, eight days after the New York Daily News first published an article based on an investigation by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA). The executives appealed directly to consumers in the video, “owning” the fact that mistakes were made, discussing improved training, more auditing and a 45 day timeline to document progress.



The investigation found Whole Foods inaccurately labeled 80 different products and in an undisclosed number of instances overcharged customers.



The retailer pushed back. Initially, Whole Foods spokesman Michael Sinatra said the company never intentionally sought to overcharge customers and planned to vigorously defend itself. It did so the following day when John Hempfling, Whole Foods chief litigation counsel, appeared on Fox Business News with host Neil Cavuto.



Hempfling dug in his heels, suggesting the DCA had an axe to grind.



“There’s no question in my mind that what the DCA is trying to do is to coerce us into paying way more money on damages claims that they don’t have evidence to support,” Hempfling told Cavuto. “We’re willing to sit down and talk with the DCA, and in fact we have. We’ve cooperated with them every step of the way.”



Whole Foods is a deep-pocketed Texas-based company whose workers are non-unionized. It is conceivable that an activist consumer organization in a liberal stronghold like New York would be inclined to more closely scrutinize the actions of such a company and be quick to publicly highlight any deficiencies uncovered.



Faced with such a scenario, Whole Food’s Mackey and Robb created a video that represents a reversal from more inflammatory statements made immediately after the report was released.