Whole Foods Co-CEOs’ Mea Culpa: ‘We Made Some Mistakes’

Now that Whole Foods’ tag-team CEOs Walter Robb and John Mackey have admitted that “inadvertent” mistakes were made in raising prices on products in New York City stores, it remains to be seen whether consumers will buy their explanation.

Mackey and Robb took to the Internet to issue a YouTube-ready apology clip Wednesday in which they put on a display of corporate contrition for the recent (and second, after a previous incident in California) round of bad publicity that resulted from the discovery that some New York shoppers were made to pay more than they should have on the chain’s already pricey products.

READ: Consumer Agency Alleges Whole Foods Has ‘Worst Case of Mislabeling’

“Straight up, we made some mistakes,” Robb said in the video spot. “We want to own that.”

The Los Angeles Times took stock Thursday:

Co-Chief Executive John Mackey said the “very, very small percentage” of “mis-weighing errors” occurred in fresh products like sandwiches, cut fruit and fresh squeezed juices.

“It’s understandable, sometimes, that mistakes are made,” Robb said. “They’re inadvertent.”

He said they knew the errors were “unintentional” because the mistakes were both “in the customer’s favor and not in the customer’s favor.”

To solve the problem, Mackey said the company would increase training in New York stores and across the country and implement a third-party auditing system to check on progress. In 45 days, he said the company will report back to customers.

However, as the paper pointed out, the executive duo’s claim that the errors were unintentional is weighed against the fact that New York investigators tested the weight of 80 various prepackaged products, and every one was mislabeled.

Meanwhile, New York-area Whole Foods cashiers are prepared to recheck prices on products during the 45-day period, and any mistakes will mean the customer gets that particular food for free.

Watch Robb and Mackey deliver their co-apology below:

–Posted by Kasia Anderson