TreeHugger Picks: Whole Foods In the News
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA 
on 06. 2.06
Whole Foods Market has met a mixed response here at TreeHugger, and while they aren't perfect, they sure have done some good things to foster the green marketplace and bring words and concepts like "organic" and "sustainable" to a segment of the world that is getting bigger every day. Here are some of the reasons we've featured Whole Foods to date.
1) In the past year or so, Whole Foods announced that they are reducing waste to zero and switched the trucks at its Midwest distribution center to run on B20 biodiesel.
2) Lately, they've been working to get the word out about their prices, in an attempt to change the perception that everything at Whole Foods is more expensive (it's not).
3) In a big effort to boost alternative energy as viable source of power, Whole Foods is 100% wind-powered in 2006 after purchasing credits equal to 100% of its projected energy use for 2006.
4) Perhaps partially as a result of this big splash, Whole Foods was near the top (#13, to be exact) of the Reader's Digest America's 100 Best, the list of the best things in America.
5) Not content to stick with groceries, last year Whole Foods opened a green lifestyle store in West Hollywood, and one of our readers went to check it out (verdict: a good start).
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
This comment doesn't belong here, but I'm not sure how else to let you guys know. Ironically, the comments aren't working in the previous post about how the website is working.
Not sure if you guys covered this before about Whole Foods:
Even though they claim they support local and small farmers, a farmer must have one million bucks of liability insurance to sell produce to Whole Foods. A friend's dad who's an organic farmer used to sell to a store that was run out of business by Whole Foods. When he came to the new store trying to sell the same stuff, he got denied for that very reason. If you know anything about small organic farmers, they definetely don't have money to cover expenses like that!
even tho it's a $1 million policy, i don't think it costs much.. for example, for massage therapists, a $2 million liability coverage can cost about $200.. so i don't think the farmers are forking over a ton of dough to get to sell their stuff there.