Stale Granola

Laissez-forget it

Corporations don't get much more civic street cred than the Whole Foods grocery chain. Even ultra-hip, ultra-socially aware rocker Ani DiFranco has been spotted wandering its aisles.

The company, founded two decades ago in Austin, Texas, now feeds punk rock gourmands and health-conscious yuppies nationwide. Whole Foods has helped to grow a mass market for organic food while making a bushel of money ($62.9 million in pro-forma income in 2001). Its management ethic also wins kudos: Executive salaries are capped, stores donate to local charities, and employees receive a decent wage (the bottom rate at one Los Angeles store is $9 an hour) and flexible benefits that, at least at some locations, can be extended to their partners, gay or straight.

Despite that track record, plans for a new Whole Foods store in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood recently fell through -- apparently because the city was trying to prevent the exploitation of local workers. Just before the deal was to be finalized in December, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency announced that the company would be subject to new wage and benefit mandates governing the area of the development. Whole Foods bailed. Although it met the requirements, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, the company didn't want to deal with bureaucratic oversight and onerous reporting duties. "Whole Foods is very proud of its employment policies," Matt Holmes, a leasing agent for the company, told the Chronicle.

Contacted in January, all parties declined to comment. One employee at the redevelopment agency explained why: "Armax [the project's developer] has now sued the agency." It appears that, at least for awhile, South of Market shoppers will have to continue buying their kava kava and organic amaranth flakes somewhere else.