The current fracas began 11 August when Mackay wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. Mr Mackey began his article with a quote from Margaret Thatcher and went on to add that Americans do not have an intrinsic right to healthcare - an idea strongly at odds with the views of a large proportion of Whole Foods' customer base. The response from the customer base has been swift and negative. Massachusetts-based playwright Mark Rosenthal's "Boycott Whole Foods" Facebook page has so far attracted 28,000 fans, including supporters in the UK and Canada.
As part of their damage limitation strategy, Whole Foods' in-house public relations division has created a forum on its website for customers to discuss the issue. There are more than 18,000 posts, compared with 63 posts on the dairy-free forum. On Newssift, the beta news filtering engine of the Financial Times, the sentiment ranking of 11 articles written in the 15 days since 11 Aug covering Whole Foods and Reputation included three rated "negative" while the 11 articles covering the same topic written in the 15 days prior to 11 Aug were all positive or neutral.
With equity up 60% over the past year, while the S&P is still down 20%, Mackay may believe he has the reputation equivalent of "mad money." On the other hand, Whole Foods'overall reputation metrics and ROE relative to their peers in the Food and Staples Retailing sector were volatile and generally below average for most of the past year, and Whole Foods' share price is currently $28, more than 60% below its all-time high at the end of 2005.
The Intangible Asset Finance Society has consistently opined that the CEO, while an important element of a company's reputation, is only as good as the people and systems that drive quality, safety, security, ethics, sustainability, innovation, and ethics. Whole Foods appears to excel at all, so it remains to be seen what the reputation impact will be from a CEO whose personal values appear to be at odds with those of his customers.
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