



In your opinion, which of these is the most impactful Earth-friendly effort? Take our poll on green efforts and see how your thoughts stack up with others.
Earth Day is a big deal around here. So much so, in fact, that we celebrate the entire month of April as Earth Month! Every Earth Day, Whole Foods Market makes specific commitments to do more as a company to help our planet.
Does your local recycling take those #5 plastics? Not many do. What to do with all of those containers from yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese, hummus and other plastic food storage with the dreaded #5 on the bottom? Never fear, the Preserve Gimme 5 program is here to help!
Thanks for all of the great feedback on our Zero Waste holiday series of blog posts. If everyone was taking the steps our readers are, we'd make a huge dent in that stat about North Americans producing 25% more waste during this time of year!
The holidays are a time of joy and celebration, of getting together with family and friends and sharing the gifts of the season. This is also the most wasteful time of the year.
I work in a part of Whole Foods Market that our customers probably don't think about very much - one of our regional distribution centers. Here in Maryland, my facility stocks and moves most of the product that you find on the shelves in our Mid-Atlantic Region stores.


Our Team Members love opening new stores - it gives them a blank canvas to try out all of their cool ideas.

We know that our customers hold us to a higher standard than conventional stores. If you talk the talk, then you better be walking the walk. We agree. So, in case you missed the press coverage of our company's big Earth Day announcement, here's a recap.
Happy Earth Day! We know we have customers, team members and vendors who are dedicated to helping our planet. Give yourself a quick pat on the back for everything you've done in the last year to green your life and business!
Here's mine: Bike to work at least once a week. 


You may recall that we announced the Project Green Prom contest put together by Teens Turning Green. Teens had the chance to make a video and send it in to win a green makeover of their school's prom. Congrats to Claudia O. from Dallas for winning with this video.



Happy Earth Month! To celebrate we've brought together 30 days worth of fun, tips and eco-minded partners to help you get involved and learn how every "little green thing" counts.
WOW!! What a great green store for the Lakewood neighborhood!
Great news for recyclers out there! Some of our Whole Foods Market stores are piloting a new program for recycling #5 plastic with Preserve called Gimme 5. If you don’t have the recycling numbers memorized (like me), #5 is commonly used in containers for yogurt, cottage cheese, hummus, medicine bottles, etc.
Kathy Loftus, a limb-dwelling (as in "out on a limb") mechanical engineer with a creative writing and communications bent, joined Whole Foods Market in 2006 to fulfill the Company's desire to create a national vision and mission for an overall energy management strategy.
After nearly two years of planning and implementation, we are excited to announce that, beginning in January, our Whole Foods Market commissary kitchen in Massachusetts will get 100% of its electricity from recycled cooking oil. Yeah!
Green products are a big deal and getting bigger, but how big can they get and still be green? While more companies are starting to talk the talk, very few are actually doing the walk. Greenwashing, the practice of misleading consumers about the environmental benefits of a particular product or service, is a growing problem.
The votes are in and the loser is: Factory Farming. In a strongly-worded report released on April 29, experts concluded that factory farming is bad for the environment, human health, the economy and, of course, farm animals.
Coinciding happily with Earth Day, this coming week is Downshifting Week. Downshifting is about slowing down the pace of your life, changing your attitude about stuff and, of course, being more green.
The Alliance for Climate Protection — a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore — has launched the We Campaign, an effort to halt global warming. Please go to the We Campaign site to learn more and speak up for solutions. Together, we can solve it.
Alternative fuels such as ethanol seem to be causing more problems than they solve. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were fuels that could be produced anywhere and didn’t compete with food crops for land? Algae could be one. Check out this report from ENN and let us know what you think.
April 22nd will mark the 38th annual observance of Earth Day. This celebration to honor the planet has grown to include the entire month of April, and this year we observed an Earth Hour on March 29th. In some parts of the world, this spirit of concern for Mother Earth has accomplished much since 1970: recycling is more common, rivers and landfills are being cleaned up and our youth are being educated in greenness, as these videos testify.
Here’s my water tip for the week: buy a stainless steel water bottle and, whenever you leave the house for more than an hour, fill it with filtered water and take it with you. This will prevent you from buying a plastic bottle of water when you get thirsty — taking one more plastic bottle out of the recycling stream or landfill. Best of all, it will help keep you hydrated and healthy. (More about those nasty plastic bottles next week.)
Planting your own organic vegetable garden is one of the greenest activities around. Just about anyone can do it, whether it’s a few pots on your apartment balcony or a full-fledged kitchen garden that takes up most of your yard. And now is the time to start thinking about it. Even in the far north, seasoned gardeners are hovering over seedlings in their basement or on their windowsill, anticipating that first frost-free date.
Now that the turkey has been recycled into leftovers, we turn our attention to the gift giving frenzy on the horizon. Real Simple magazine reports, "Household waste increases 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Years Day. In the United States, trash from wrapping paper and shopping bags totals 4 million tons."
Welcome to Whole Story, the official blog of Whole Foods Market. Don't know us? In a nutshell, we are the world’s leading natural and organic grocer and we’re passionate about healthy food and a healthy planet. Learn more about us.
We’re lucky to have a whole bunch of smart, passionate people doing incredible things in areas like organics, supporting local growers, green practices, fair trade, micro-lending and all kinds of food related stuff. We’ll use this blog to share some of the cool things going on around here.
Of course what makes this blog really exciting is YOU — so join the conversation!