by kleinbl00

“Whole Foods was always an advocate for the small business. They always wanted to support local artisans,” says Erika Kerekes, founder and owner of Not Ketchup condiments. Not Ketchup was sold at Whole Foods locations in Southern California, near where Kerekes lives, for several years, up until six months ago. (Now it’s sold via its website and on Amazon.)

In September 2017, one month after the acquisition and Mackey’s initial statement, Whole Foods quietly announced it would be discontinuing parts of its local sourcing program. “Instead of allowing brands to frequently pitch their products to individual stores or regions,” the Wall Street Journal reported, “Whole Foods executives in its Austin, Texas, headquarters will choose a higher percentage of the inventory.”

When all you have is a hammer, the world is made of nails. I saw a quote on Twitter about that whole Amazon/Berkshire/Morgan healthcare thing. Someone pointed out that nobody would predict success if Aetna, CVS and ETrade decided that they hated their computers and wanted to get into the computing business. It's taken Amazon two flipping years to successfully open a convenience store; how, exactly they'd improve a high-end grocery store remains a mystery to me.