Social media is becoming a driving force in the grassroots efforts to organize a nationwide boycott against the “natural” grocery store chain Whole Foods. According to ClickZ, thousands of people have signed up to “Boycott Whole Foods” groups and pages on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with the number continuing to grow daily.
The controversy started when the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece on Aug. 11 written by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey calling for less government intervention in health care reform. Within days of the article’s publication, people were flocking to various groups and pages on social media sites urging for a boycott of the chain. The “Boycott Whole Foods” Facebook group, for example, currently has more than 30,000 members.
However, that’s a fraction of the more than 125,000 members of the official Whole Foods group on Facebook, and a drop in the bucket of the 1.25 million followers of the Whole Foods blog. Only time will tell if this is a major PR blunder by Whole Foods or a momentary pause.
