Now that Whole Foods’ tag-team CEOs Walter Robb and John Mackey have admitted that “inadvertent” mistakes were made in raising prices on products in New York City stores, it remains to be seen whether consumers will buy their explanation.
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“We want to own that and tell you what we’re doing about it”, Walter Robb, co-CEO of Whole Foods Market said in a video published on Wednesday.
They maintain the pricing mistakes were unintentional and promise, in the future, they will give items away for free if customers discover they were overcharged. “Whether we’re making sandwiches or we’re squeezing fresh juices or having cut fruit, in these areas there’s a very, very small percentage of mis-weighing errors”.
The agency tested 80 types of food and found all of them to have mislabeled weight.
In June, Whole Check (yes, you read that nickname correctly) was investigated by the Department of Consumer Affairs and found to have over-charged their customers at almost all of their New York City locations.
“””(The prices) were off significantly”, Commissioner Julie Menin said last week. “Whole Foods is admitting the deficiencies in how they label their prepackaged foods”.
The two CEOs promised to increase training of their staff across the country and implement a third-party auditing system to track improvements, which customers will be able to follow. “We don’t want there to ever be any mistakes”.
“These mistakes have to do with the things that we do in the store, mostly our fresh product”, said Mackey.
One example was a vegetable platter, which was priced at $20.
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But Whole Foods Market is increasing training at its stores in New York City and nationwide. They also encourage customers who think there’s a mistake to bring it up to Whole Foods cashiers. It just recently paid an $800,000 settlement with a similar case of improperly weighing products and overcharging shoppers in California.
