Whole Foods Markets Missing The Mark On Quality Standards

By Author: Bill Peret
Total Articles: 1
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Companies selling products to health food stores have to endure a rigorous vetting process to earn the privilege of occupying shelf space there. The king of vetting ingredients, though, is Whole Foods Markets. Whole Foods rigorous vetting process usually ensures regulatory compliance, consumer satisfaction, the store's reputation, and the ability serve their community long-term. However, there are holes in Whole Foods vetting process that allow un-vetted products to slip through undetected.

A prime example of this, continues to dupe innocent customers. I refer to an incident involving a top quality plant calcium made from the Algas calcareas.sp, the main ingredient in New Chapter's Bone Strength Take Care product. It was launched in September 2007 with Whole Foods Markets picking up the product a few months after the market introduction. With modest promotion and strong sales representation, the product skyrocketed to the number one selling calcium supplement in the health food store channel in less than 18 months. Then, without notifying retail establishments including Whole Foods Markets, New Chapter replaced the evidence-supported ...
... and highly documented AlgaeCal with a very inexpensive algae calcium from a different species of sea algae called Lithothamnium.

Simple web research reveals AlgaeCal is live harvested by hand as the algae washes up on the beach - as eco-friendly as possible. The ecological sustainability of this resource is attested to by a third party organic certifying body which has deemed Algas calcareas.sp USDA certified organic. The new Lithothamnium calcium is dredged up from the ocean bottom using a giant vaccum picking up not just algae, but anything else that is on the bottom of the ocean. Because there is obviously a lot of "non-algae" being dredged up, much of it is discarded overboard where it silts the surrounding area. To purify the new calcium ingredient used by New Chapter, a bleaching process is employed. Further research shows a vast difference in scientific support between the two algae calciums. Original algas calcareas has published safety studies and several other studies showing it works better on bones than any other major calcium source. The newcomer has zero published safety studies and zero studies supporting a role in bone health. Calcium supplements are generally consumed for decades so most customers want to KNOW that in the end, the calcium has been studied and produces results.

Back in 2007, Whole Foods Markets had investigated and passed New Chapter's original formula with the AlgaeCal ingredient, but when New Chapter switched the main ingredient, they just kept shipping it to Whole Foods and nobody noticed the minor changes on the packaging. The Bone Strength Take Care suggested retail price stayed the same, although the ingredient cost dropped by several hundred percent with the cheap knock off calcium.

So, Whole Foods at the time of writing, November 2010, still doesn't know that the product originally approved for the store is not the same product now being sold to consumers. Somehow, Whole Foods needs to plug the hole in their vetting process and not allow companies with approved products to switch out the main ingredient for a poor substitute without full disclosure. It's not fair to their customers who are paying top dollar for a product they think is Whole Foods approved. An interesting article about this switch was written in the October 2010 issue of Nutritional Outlook by Manashi Bagchi PhD, a scientist who was involved in a University study involving Algas calcareas.sp.

This article was written in response to the Manashi Bagchi article on New Chapter ingredient switching. Visit us http://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/article/ingredient-switching