Whole Foods roasted over attempt at anti-racist messaging
A banner displayed at a Whole Foods Market has caused a buzz
Strategic Resource Group managing director Burt Flickinger on the impact of cashier-less stores on the retail industry.
An attempt by Whole Foods to connect with the Black community has fallen flat on social media, after Twitter users roundly mocked the high-end grocery store chain for its messaging.
In a tweet over the weekend, one user posted a picture showing a sign outside a Whole Foods Market that reads, "Racism has no place here. We support the black community."
The user commented above the image, "This sh*t is deranged."
Whole Foods' purported anti-racist message drew waves of criticism from the Twittersphere, with users piling on the Amazon-owned grocer for not being located in Black communities.
"Ok so put a location in Black neighborhoods," one person replied.
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"Whole Foods fights racism by only building stores where Black people are not," another user quipped.
There was some debate over the message, too. One person argued that Whole Foods does put stores in Black communities, "just in the areas that actually make enough."
Another wrote, "No they don't. They won't even put their stores in Black neighborhoods. They've been operating off of strictly white dollars this entire time."
Others said they had experienced racism at Whole Foods locations, themselves.
"This is a lie," one Twitter user said about the sign. "I experienced the most racism in my life working at Whole Foods in Orange, OH for 6 months during quarantine. Trust me, if Whole Foods was against racism, they’d have just as many locations in black and Hispanic communities and not just affluent whites ones."
Someone else replied to Whole Foods' message, "Yet y’all won’t build a store in non white or non wealthy neighborhoods. Same with yalls beloved Trader Joes. Last time I was in one of your stores @WholeFoods, I got followed around by one of your employees. ‘Racism has no place here.’ Ironic isn’t it."
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FOX Business reached out to both Whole Foods and Amazon for comment, but did not receive responses from either at the time of publication.