You might remember that a couple of months ago I wrote about the new labels that Whole Foods started using on their pre-packaged prepared foods. They came out with two symbols — “VN” and “VEG” — and it wasn’t clear what they meant, an obvious problem considering that the goal of introducing the symbols was clarity.
While looking at the newly labeled products I’d noticed that their Greek Orzo with a “VN” symbol had cheese in it, so it was clear that “VN” couldn’t mean “vegan.” But… it did mean vegan. Because they made a mistake. So not only were the symbols themselves confusing, they were misapplying them, too.
After I tweeted a link to my post, Whole Foods replied and told me they’d look into the problem, and a few weeks later they got back to me and said the orzo was mislabeled and they were correcting it. And one of my favorite followers, @10ftdoll, brought the problem to their attention at the store level. And sure enough, before long, the orzo labels were changed to show the “VEG” symbol not the “VN” one. And “VEG” is short for “VEGETARIAN” because it’s obviously the first three letters of “VEGETARIAN” and apparently it doesn’t matter that it’s also the first three letters of “VEGAN” and apparently that didn’t occur to the geniuses involved in creating these symbols who never thought to go with “VGT” or something else with a letter that’s not in “VEGAN” thus making it obvious what they were talking about. Because why would you want to be obvious when your goal is clarity?
Anyway, at least they corrected their unintentional mistake with the orzo so that only their intentional mistakes remained. In other words, at least the new labels and symbols were now merely useless and not incorrect. Until this week.
Because this week at my local Whole Foods while looking through their pre-packaged items I noticed more mistakes. Now remember, it’s Whole Foods, so maybe, according to their Alice in Wholefoodsland logic, these mistakes are intentional, but to me and you and everyone but the idiots creating and signing off on these symbols, they’re mistakes nonetheless. Because as you can see from these photos, both the “Red Quinoa Salad” and the “Superfoods Salad” are mislabeled. They both are marked vegetarian (VEG) not vegan (VN) even though a reading of the labels shows them both to be vegan.
How does this happen? Do the people labeling these foods not understand what their own labels mean? Are they just careless? Even though they already had to correct a mistake with the orzo do they still not pay close attention to their work? And after all, there’s money at stake! If vegans don’t ever pick up these packages to read the ingredients label on the bottom because they see the “VEG” not “VN” symbol on the front, how many packs are being left behind that might otherwise be sold?
Or is it not a mistake at all and did Whole Foods decide to abandon the “VN” symbol altogether and say to hell with vegans and let us fend for ourselves? It’s hard to know. But the more mistakes that occur, the harder it is to trust any of their labels, and don’t they realize this? Don’t they understand that it’s important for vegans to know there’s no dairy or egg in their food and for vegetarians to know there’s no meat? Don’t they understand that if they create brand new symbols for their packages that people will start to rely on these symbols? And don’t they understand that if people see that Whole Foods is constantly using the wrong symbols that people will realize they CAN’T rely on these symbols, and that then Whole Foods will be putting symbols on their packages for nothing, since nobody will trust them or even look at them anymore?
What’s the point of John Mackey fighting unionization if not to be able to summarily fire the morons who created and maintain this idiotic system? Those staffers need to be stamped “UN” for UNEMPLOYED. Or wait, will Whole Foods think “UN” means UNTOUCHABLE and thus never fire them? Damn, this simplification is complicated! I wish Mr. Mackey would fix it for good. Because after all, he is VN you know.
insufferablevegan 
Oh no, not again *big sigh*. That is quite disappointing! Have you brought this to your local store’s team members’ attention? You’re right that it’s such an utter waste carrying vegan products that vegans will not buy simply because the VEG label was used. But I suppose it’s better than the opposite, as in the case of the orzo salad, where vegans expecting the product to be vegan accidentally consumes dairy, etc. because they relied purely on the VN designation and didn’t check the ingredients label. Whole Foods, you’re killing us here! Perhaps I should reprise my role as “detective”? 😛
Wait, I’m one of your favorite followers? 😉
This wasn’t insufferable at all, it’s damn reasonable. What a mess up. I am seriously losing faith and my mind in the whole system. I am so confused, because they label stuff as vegetarian when it has l cysteine (derived from human hair or bird feathers?!) in it. Yes, I am veggie, not vegan, but that is just gross. And then supposedly ‘vegetarian’ foods, labelled as such, and I write to the freaking companies and nobody knows if these ‘vegetarian’ foods contain sugar filtered with bone char, mono glycerides from animal fat or other weird stuff. So do I trust the blinking label or not? Do I now have to buy the raw ingredients and make absolutely everything I eat myself? What about the social stigma of never eating or the possibility of staying away and not being able to eat anything without dissecting it and sending it to a lab?
Rrrrrr. Sorry, rant over. Nobody else cares, so it’s nice to say this around people who will get it!
Thanks for what you do here.
Thank you 🙂