Due to various protests and harsh criticism, Whole Foods has announced it will no longer sell products made in prison by inmates, according to Newsweek.
By April 2016, Whole Foods will no longer stock items made by prison labor. In some stores, the items will disappear from shelves even sooner. The announcement comes on the heels of a protest in Houston, staged just last weekend near a Whole Foods store.
Whole Foods currently sells goat cheese, trout and tilapia made by inmates in Colorado. Inmates receive only 74 cents per day, in some cases, for high-end foods the supermarket chain sells at top-shelf prices. The prisoners are eligible to receive bonuses up to $4 for their efforts on the job.
The inmate work program producing these foods is maintained through Colorado Correctional Industries, CCI, according to The Associated Press. Whole Foods has used the program in the past to "help people get back on their feet and eventually become contributing members of society," Michael Silverman, Whole Foods spokesperson, said. Protests against this practice have seemingly swayed the company.
CCI employed more than 1,800 prison inmates in 2014, says an annual report, according to The Wall Street Journal. They hope to expand the prison labor program over the next decade.
