Previously Excellent Whole Foods Now Dangerous To Children & Families I used to think of this as a little gem years back. "The Little Whole Foods That Could", we happily called it. They had excellent selections, such as massively nutritious Frenz eggs from New Zealand. Beautiful orange yolks like a real egg should have. High choline for brain building. Fast forward to today. Less premium products. Their food smoker greeted us in the parking lot, smelling like it needed a good cleaning. Even local Sprouts Market has a better kombucha selection, with healthier meat choices. All unusual for a WFM location. We felt oddly run down when arriving in Vegas, so we headed to the cold and flu area. That ended up being the biggest problem area. I tried out the new, fancy looking blood pressure machine, while my hubby went (slowly, due to fighting a DVT and some other health issues) to look at the remedies to try to cut off any potential sickness early. Whilst looking at Umcka, my kids were about 90 degrees from my husband and the littlest one, just 3 years old, touched a toy at his level. The vitamin lady, Beverly, came over and smacked his hands away, saying "you're done playing with these". She didn't seem to know she did this right next to their dad. The 3yr old then then went to hide behind daddy. We reported this quickly to the night manager at the time. I think his name was Dave, and he simply said "ok" and walked away with another co-worker. (Not a WFM norm. There is something bizarrely wrong with this location) We also reminded him that if you don't want children reacting to toys, don't have toys. To my mind, they're inappropriate to place conspicuously in a health food store. In a sense, the night manager was worse than Beverly. We're not big "get a manager" types, so when we do complain, we expect to be taken seriously. We're major purchasers at these stores. Mint.com shows $14k of purchases the last 14 months. ~$1k a month, and that was when we lived far away from a WFM location. It'll be higher this year as we travel more. We have a small amount of WFM in our portfiolio. We know what's normal and what's not. WF employees don't tend to be as gung ho as TJs', true, but they're usually good people. This night manager was, pardon my language, a complete tool. A serious brand liability. Didn't ask questions, didn't want to solve problems. The young man in the egg dept was better. He noted the eggs we missed and said he'd do his best to get them back in. Much more management quality. The juice folks were also nice. In fact, many of the younger employees were very nice and seemed to "get" the brand. They seemed more concerned than the more senior staff, who must be more used to violating people. (again, this location only) In the car, my 3yr old kept saying "that lady hit me". My much older boy who was directly next to the 3yr old said she hit him 2-3 times, and pushed him away. His father has harangued him endlessly about honesty and the Boy Scout code, so he's usually accurate. I then realized this may be criminal, so I phoned the police. They told me this is "battery", and to come in and file a report or have an officer visit. Since we were in Vegas for a tradeshow where most of Whole Food's supplement suppliers were, we opted to try WFM's own channels first. Didn't want to make problems for a brand we normally admire for providing healthier options in relative "food deserts". Turns out WFM doesn't have an easy way to report such incidents. Most of their channels route things DIRECTLY to a problem store, instead of levels above. I get decentralization, but this is crazy. As Einstein said, "We cannot solve problems at the same level at which we created them". The only person I was able to reach on the phone said to report it to the police, which I'm finalizing soon. If there's an arrest on their property, soiling their brand in their customer's eyes, that's their own fault, at their own request. They could've let the bad actor go, or at least taken her away from a customer facing position. Either would've taught a lesson about not touching customer's kids. As much as what she did was wrong, I also agree that having toys in conspicuous places does not add to the nutritional experience. Of course, police can't do anything about a bad manager. It's up to WFM to demote him or let him go. Managers are paid to be problem solvers, not problem makers. I understand that he may have been tired, but so were we. His response did not match his pay grade. In short, these stores should be safe for families, which this one IS NOT. And if WF doesn't want a 3 yr old acting like a child around toys, then please do us all a favor (parents and other visitors alike) and remove them. They're an unwanted distraction, and no amount of chiding is going to change the amount of grey matter in a small child's skull. (the human brain isn't fully formed, in fact, until 25 -- the exact age you can rent a car!)
How would this review be described in terms of sentiment?
Pick your answer from:
[a]. negative
[b]. positive
[a].