Outrage After Whole Foods Puts Peeled Oranges in Plastic

Company has apologized for the 'mistake'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 4, 2016 10:05 AM CST
Outrage After Whole Foods Puts Peeled Oranges in Plastic
Convenient or wasteful?   (Twitter)

Nathalie Gordon was browsing through a Whole Foods store when she spotted something odd: peeled oranges packaged in plastic containers. While the store might've thought the items were convenient for customers, Gordon had a different take. "If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them," she tweeted Thursday alongside a photo, which has been retweeted more than 58,000 times as of this writing. Some users noted that the oranges would be nice for people unable to peel them on their own, say because of mobility issues, but others soon complained, too. "That makes me unbelievably angry," wrote one. "Talk about necessarily contributing to plastic taking over the planet."

Within hours, Whole Foods had its response ready. "Definitely our mistake," the store tweeted. "These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel." In a statement to the Huffington Post, a Whole Foods rep adds, "A lot of our customers love the convenience of our cut produce offerings, but this was a simple case where a handful of stores experimented with a seasonal product spotlight that wasn't fully thought through. We're glad some customers pointed it out so we could take a closer look." But Whole Foods just can't win, apparently. Some Twitter users are now complaining that the store's "attitude towards disability … is truly vile." (Whole Foods also apologized after this "asparagus water" debacle.)

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