Whole Foods Needs Whole Story from Suppliers!

To compound sluggish sales due to a weak economy, the good boys and girls over at Whole Foods seem to have another little problem on their hands, contaminated beef. Yeah that’s right you guessed it, another E. Coli outbreak. This time traced to Nebraska Beef who is one of the largest meatpackers in the US. Seems like you can’t swing a dead cow and not run across an E. Coli outbreak these days!

You knew this was coming…..Where’s the beef?

Problem is, Whole Foods got the meat from Coleman Natural Foods who processed the tainted meat at Nebraska Beef who just so happens to have a bit of a history with food safety violations. Whole Foods officials are trying to determine why they didn’t know that Coleman was using Nebraska Beef as a processor in the first place.

That’s the $64,000 dollar question

Last week I wrote about Fisher-Price using lead paint on kids toys and there is no difference here with Whole Foods. Why? Because as a company serving consumers, you need to know what is going on throughout your entire supply chain. If you don’t, then you own just as much of the responsibility as the next guy. It’s a simple matter of saying hey guy, where do you process this stuff? But then again, maybe Whole Foods didn’t want to know, that way they have deniability or maybe they did know, in which case you can kiss all those Moms who buy your overpriced food because they think it’s better for their families’ goodbye.

The story I read about went on for three pages ripping into Nebraska Beef and what A-holes they are, but they arn’t the story. If these scumbags are able to put bad food into the system and not get shut down by the scumbags that are supposed to protect us, then we are eff’d all around. Why? Because each acted exactly as we expected them to but Whole Foods was careless in their operations and still promoted themselves as the better alternative. So much for all natural. Fix your house Whole Foods and stay off the financial forums!

China Manufacturing: on Brink of Collapse?

Ah the winds of change. Seems nothing is more constant than change, right? Well they seem to be blowing in from the east these days, the Far East, as in China. On the eve of the 2008 Olympic Games, there is trouble afoot and I don’t mean the smog, I mean Chinese manufacturing.

China is experiencing a triple witching that is threatening to ruin the stronghold in the manufacturing sector that that country has enjoyed for the last twenty years. Ever increasing labor costs, outrageous energy costs, and production quality issues have sounded the early warning sirens around the globe that now maybe a good time to look for other manufacturing alternatives.

Funny how fickle large multinationals can be when it comes to cheap labor!

Companies and countries alike are taking a second look at their exposure in China. Some are opting for other lower-wage countries like Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, and India while others are choosing to return home to wave the “made in (insert country name) here” flag.

Still others have had to consider pulling out of China because of the negative impact their product liability has caused in their respective countries. Fisher-Price, a division of Mattel for example, was involved in a massive scandal in August 2007 that resulted in the recall of a million toys, including the popular Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street toy lines because the toys may have been coated in a lead-based paint. I doubt the firm has or ever will recover.

While the impact is minimal today, China will soon be forced to deal with the growing concerns of companies seeking to address the rising costs of goods back home. These firms will either continue to drive down costs in China, or relocate to other countries that promise lower operating overhead while providing higher production standards. But no matter what happens in the short term, it’s going to take a while before some country comes along and unseats China from the manufacturing throne they currently occupy.