Farm Forward investigation finds 98.4% of Whole Foods 365-brand chicken comes from plants where dangerous, high-virulence salmonella dominates—most of it Perdue chicken sold at up to 46% above mainstream retailer prices. Despite its “better meat” promise, 365-brand chicken is largely indistinguishable from cheaper chicken on the food-safety metrics that matter most.
Whole Foods Market built its 365 chicken brand on a commitment to “better meat” standards, promising transparency, traceability, animal welfare, no antibiotics ever, and no added growth hormones. Customers pay a premium for that promise, and implicit in it is an assumption most wouldn’t think to question: that it’s a safer product, and not a product that may carry high rates of the most dangerous forms of salmonella.
Farm Forward’s latest investigation traced 247 365-brand raw chicken products to their processing plants using federal establishment numbers. It found that 98.4 percent of the 365-brand raw chicken we sampled was processed in plants where high-virulence salmonella serotypes—the strains most associated with severe illness, hospitalization, and death—make up the majority of positive samples found at the plants, including at plants the federal government considers to be performing acceptably. Most of this contaminated chicken traces back to a single company: the vast majority (92.3 percent) of the 365-brand products in our sample were processed at plants owned by Perdue. Because Perdue also supplies many of the largest supermarkets in America, we were able to compare prices of 365-brand chicken with Perdue’s products sold elsewhere. Whole Foods charged a premium of as much as nearly 46 percent, averaging roughly 20 percent, above mainstream retailers for the identical product type and production claim (organic to organic, conventional to conventional) of Perdue chicken from the same processing plants.
This investigation was designed to evaluate whether Whole Foods’ quality claims hold up, based on data from processing plants. We traced each product to its specific processing plant using its USDA establishment number. We then cross-referenced those establishments against two USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) datasets: the agency’s salmonella contamination ratings, and its surveillance data on salmonella serotypes and antibiotic resistance.
Given Perdue’s dominance in our sample, we conducted a second audit: identifying which of those same plants supply chicken sold at mainstream retailers in the same markets as the Whole Foods stores we surveyed, and comparing prices for what is frequently the same underlying product, sourced from the identical plant, matched by production claim (organic versus conventional), and typically the same conventional fast-growing breeds of chicken.
The findings from this research are stark:
These findings undercut the basic premise of the 365 brand. Whole Foods consumers are charged significantly more for chicken marketed as meeting a “better meat” standard. However, on the specific measures that determine actual food-safety risk for salmonella (contamination, serotype virulence, and antibiotic resistance), much of that chicken is indistinguishable from chicken sold at a lower price by other retailers. It is also likely chicken from the same conventional fast-growing breeds sold industry-wide, and the same ones Whole Foods pledged a decade ago to phase out (a related failure examined in a companion Farm Forward report, “The Root of the Problem: How Whole Foods Abandoned Its Promise on Chicken Genetics”). Whole Foods shoppers are not just failing to get what they’re paying for; in many cases, they’re paying more for the same types of products, from the same plants, with the same production claim, and typically the same breeds, sourced from some of the most contaminated plants in the country.
Read the full report.