Not everyone is excited about the cheaper avocados at Whole Foods. Grub Street reports some shoppers are calling for a Whole Foods boycott because of a messy situation between its new parent company, Amazon, and Breitbart.com, a site known to spread hateful messaging and news with a conservative bent.
Thousands of companies, including Kellogg’s, Deliveroo, Dove’s Chocolate, and Organic Valley, have pulled their ads from Breitbart; previously, those ads could have been displayed on the page via third-party vendors. Consumers, led by groups like Grab Your Wallet, called on Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos to add its name to the list last November, but it has refrained.
Just added @WholeFoods to Amazon's entry on the #GrabYourWallet list: https://t.co/od2s2OzgfB +
— Shannon Coulter (@shannoncoulter) August 25, 2017
Please stop advertising on Breitbart! Don't support hate #DropBreitbart #GrabYourWallet
— Rita S (@eileenmdh) August 25, 2017
@amazon stop supporting hate via #Breitbart ads, or we'll cancel @amazonprimenow and boycott @WholeFoods cc: @slpng_giants @womensmarch
— Houston Women March (@WomensMarchHOU) August 26, 2017
I don't know about you, but I prefer my Whole Foods organic veggies WITHOUT a dose of racism. #DropBreitbart#BoycottWholeFoods pic.twitter.com/KtJqkeWDGb
— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) August 25, 2017
In May, during Amazon’s last shareholders’ meeting, protesters marched outside Amazon’s headquarters, holding signs that read, “stop funding bigotry,” according to the Hill. Though that made a few headlines, it’s nothing compared to the visibility of protesting in front of or boycotting Whole Foods, the sustainably minded, supposedly altruistic chain that at least some conservatives believe is anti-Trump.
That’s a point of contention: as Grub Street points out, Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey is “a complicated man ideologically.” He’s not as progressive as some might think. But Whole Foods’ mission statement is clearly at odds with Breitbart’s messaging. Will pressure from consumers be enough to move Bezos to action? Based on other controversies Amazon has weathered, it seems more likely that consumers will keep eating up that lower priced k.
Whole Foods has not yet responded to a request for comment.
• Amazon’s Refusal to Pull Breitbart Ads Is Causing People to Boycott Whole Foods [GS]