Whole foods to stop selling food produced by prison inmates (employment, stores)

[HellUpInHarlem]

Whole Foods said it will stop selling products made using a prison labor program after protesters took over a Texas store.
The supermarket chain said it will be pulling the products — which include tilapia, trout and goat cheese — from its stores by April 2016, if not sooner, after critics pointed out the goods were being produced through a Colorado inmate program.
The grocery giant pays the state’s Department of Corrections just 85 cents per pound of the fish — which are farmed in tanks built by inmates — and yeild profits up to $11.99 per pound.
Michael Silverman, a spokesman for Whole Foods, said that the company’s relationship with the prison system was meant to “help people get back on their feet and eventually become contributing members of society.”
Inmates who volunteer for the Colorado Correctional Industries program are paid between 74 cents and $4 a day, said the director, Dennis Dunsmoor.
The inmates are also eligible for performance bonuses.
Dunsmoor said that the goods produced in the program are sold to Whole Foods through other partners.
The program aims to train inmates with skills to better help them find employment after release.

Whole foods to stop selling food produced by prison inmates - NY Daily News