Whole Foods Market : Company : John Mackey's Blog : Detailed Reply to Pollan Letter

Whole Foods Market : Company : John Mackey's Blog : Detailed Reply to Pollan Letter: "Detailed Reply to Pollan Letter

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your recent letter to me. I appreciate the fact that you wrote the letter in an overall positive tone. I want to respond to your letter with an equally positive tone and match your efforts in 'constructive criticism.' I'll take your letter section by section, with my responses below each section. I will then conclude by writing about some of the new initiatives Whole Foods Market will be beginning very soon, which I hope you'll find exciting. I know that I'm very excited about them.

I'll only say a couple of things as an introduction. One of these is that I'm disappointed that you didn't respond at all to my short section on the history of the organic foods movement and how difficult it was for Whole Foods Market to develop sufficient supply and scale to actually get authentic organic foods into the hands (and mouths) of millions of people. You completely ignored that section. Without Whole Foods Market's pioneering work and without the growth of our stores and distribution centers, it is very unlikely that the organic foods movement would be where it is today. You obviously admire the retail food co-op movement (which I supported myself in Austin prior to co-founding Whole Foods Market), but in fact this movement "