Product Quality of Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market only sells products that meet its self-created quality standards for being "natural", which the store defines as: minimally processed foods that are free of hydrogenated fats as well as artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, preservatives, and many others as listed on their online "Unacceptable Food Ingredients" list. Whole Foods Market has also announced that it does not intend to sell meat or milk from cloned animals or their offspring, even though the FDA has ruled them safe to eat. The company also sells many USDA-certified organic foods and products that aim to be environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible. Stores do not carry foie gras or eggs from hens confined to battery cages due to animal cruelty concerns, as a result of successful advocacy by animal welfare groups. The Whole Foods Market website details the company's criteria for selling food, dietary supplements, and personal care products. According to CNN, the extent of Whole Foods Market's nutritional screening is it "doesn't carry any food containing trans fats or artificial coloring".
Allyn Jones, who is part of the Whole Body division of Whole Foods Markets insisted the company avoids brands "that were just using organic as a marketing gimmick." She added "Standards that apply on one side of the store do not apply on the other". "Products made using petroleum-derived and other synthetic or chemical ingredients, prohibited in organic foods, can be found among the organic shampoos and lotions made by Avalon, Nature's Gate, Jason Natural Cosmetics, Kiss My Face and other brands", said Urvashi Rangan, an environmental health scientist, who works for Consumer Reports. Many personal care products using the word organic contain ingredients that do not exist in nature. The federal guidelines that regulate organic food labeling do not apply to cosmetics. A consumer group says the main ingredient in some brands, a hydrosol, mainly water, is used to inflate the organic content.
Whole Foods Market has been criticized that its products may not be as progressive as they are touted to be. Author Michael Pollan has contended that the supermarket chain has done well in expanding the organic market, but has done so at the cost of local foods, regional producers, and distributors. Parts of the debate have taken place publicly through a series of letters between Pollan and Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey.
Ronnie Cummins, national director of the United States Organic Consumers Association, said that Whole Foods Market simply uses the term natural as a marketing tool. Cummins concluded that "Whole Foods Market now is a big-box retailer – and it's much more concerned about competing with the other big boxes than issues of ethics and sustainability." Similarly, researcher Stacy Mitchell of the New Rules Project argues that the corporation's aggressive marketing of local food is more hype than substance. The company is known to ship large quantities of produce across state lines. For example, in 2008, the company put "Texas sweet onions" on special in its Northern California stores[citation needed] even though California is one of the biggest onion producers in the world.
In a Wall Street Journal article in August, 2009, John Mackey acknowledged that his company had lost touch with its natural food roots and would attempt to reconnect with the idea that health was affected by the quality of food consumed. He said "We sell a bunch of junk". He stated that the company would focus more on health education in its stores.
Whole Foods Women's Food Based multivitamin was tested by ConsumerLab.com in their Multivitamin and Multimineral Supplements Review of 38 of the leading multivitamin/multimineral products sold in the U.S. and Canada. This multivitamin passed ConsumerLab's test, which included testing of selected index elements, their ability to disintegrate in solution per United States Pharmacopeia guidelines, lead contamination threshold set in California Proposition 65, and meeting FDA labeling requirements.