Foodies with Benefits

Whole Foods Launches Edible Schoolyard Copycat

An org after Alice's own heart, or just good press?
An org after Alice’s own heart, or just good press?

Austin-based Whole Foods Inc. is launching something called the Whole Kids Foundation, whose mission is to educate kids about healthy food choices, first by establishing and expanding teaching gardens at schools around the country. Huh. Sounds kind of a lot like Alice Waters’s Edible Schoolyard Foundation, which next month becomes the official new identity for the longstanding Chez Panisse Foundation, also dedicated to improving kids’ food choices through teaching gardens.

Anyway, we’re not sure if Whole Foods is trying to steal some of Alice’s thunder or just do a little more good for the world and thereby generate good press as well. But this news arrives the same day as a hilarious anti–Whole Foods screed hit the web in the form of a lengthy resignation letter from a disgruntled employee at a Toronto store, who says the place has become like “a faux hippy Wal-Mart.”

Whole Foods launches charitable organization [AP/Examiner]
Related: Chez Panisse to Celebrate 40 Years With Events at the Berkeley Art Museum, Edible Schoolyard Dinners Nationwide

Whole Foods Launches Edible Schoolyard Copycat