Why Whole Foods' exec used the F word, and, Who really owns Trader Joe's?

Did you happen to listen to NPR January 17, when Whole Foods co-founder and top executive John Mackey used the F word?

We're talking Fascism.

Mackey was on Morning Edition promoting his new book, Conscious Capitalism. But he probably lost sales - for the book and his supermarket chain - when he said the nation's new health care plan amounted to fascism.

Big Gulp. 

NPR was just one stop on Mackey's promotional book tour. By the time he got to CBS This MorningMackey was in full damage control mode, talking about a "bad choice of words" and all that. NPR later called Mackey's comments on CBS a "walk back." We'd call it something less kind. As Lance Armstrong is learning, folks can tell when you are truly sorry for your actions and when you're just sorry you got caught.

Mackey's case of foot-in-mouth reminds me why I'm happy to be a member of a food coop. Spend money at the Whole Foods in Jenkintown and the proceeds go to Austin, Texas. The dollars and cents I spend at CreekSide stay in this community.

And while CreekSide pays staffers a living wage, Mackey has successfully staved off efforts by his staffers to unionize.  No doubt, those "associates," as he calls them, won't take too kindly to Mackey's kvetching about the possibility of paying more for their fascist-imposed health care. On the radio, he sounded more concerned about the sustainability of his seafood than that of his associates.

But who am I to pick on Whole Foods in its times of trouble? I'm an equal opportunity critic, so let's go to Trader Joe's.

I was surprised to learn (from Creekside board president Max Minkoff ) that quirky, comfy Trader Joe's is owned by Aldi's. Yes, that Aldi's on Easton Road. The Aldi's with an armed guard at the door, where in exchange for deep discounts on no-name ketchup, shoppers are forced to fork over a quarter in advance for a shopping cart and bag their own groceries. Forget to bring your own bags at Aldi and you're left to sort through their soggy cartons to find one in which the hole in the bottom isn't too big. 

Make no mistake, Trader Joe's, which started in Pasadena in 1967 and was later purchased by Aldi , was never local. 

As Walter Loeb wrote in Forbes in 2012, Aldi was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1913 in Essen, Germany. (ALbrecht DIscount = Aldi, get it?) The brothers retired in 1933 and created a family trust to operate their empire. In 1979, the trust bought Trader Joe's and by last year there were 9,949 stores around the world called Aldi or Trader Joe's. The Albrecht brother's mom really did start out in the business with a corner store, but  Karl and Theo became the two richest men in Germany. When Theo died in 2010, he was the 31st richest man in the world. (They were apparently reclusive oddballs, worthy of a Google search when you get a chance.)

The Trader Joe's store in Jenkintown, like all the others, trades on its relatively small size, its store-brand labels on national brands, and its folksy Hawaiian shirts to lend the impression of an olde time country store. But in 2010, Trader Joe's alone (i.e., not counting the Aldi stores) had annual sales that equaled those of Whole Foods and exceeded those of Bed Bath and Beyond, according to a Fortune magazine report.

You're free to shop where you please - at a store that offers deep discounts at the price of dignity; a store that short-changes its staff, a store that sends its proceeds out of town. Or at CreekSide, which is member owned and values driven.

        -- Dianna Marder (member #70)

A Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer for 27 years, Dianna Marder wrote about food for the paper for last decade of her time there. She writes this occasional column, Cents and Sensibility, as a volunteer.

Comments

[Janice]

Hi, thanks for doing this research on Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. I have heard/read about the Whole Foods guy lots of different times, and it really does not make me want to send my 15% margin of profit to him. (15% is the margin that Whole Food makes, I hear, and the largest in the grocery biz). Did not know about Trader Joe's but very interesting. There is also a comparably interesting (disturbing?) story about IKEA, if anyone wants to really know about the real price of their cheap stuff. Thanks so much!