A victory for eco-friendly shoppers, but a loss for the lazy.
On Thursday, Whole Foods pulled its pre-peeled oranges from the shelves after a shopper tweeted a photo of the product, creating a PR nightmare for the food store chain.
“Definitely our mistake,” Whole Foods tweeted. “These have been pulled.”
The controversy started when London-based Nathalie Gordon snapped a pic of a shelf full of pre-peeled oranges, each of which had been placed in a plastic container instead.
While the health-conscious grocery store has been known to package fruits such as grapes, strawberries and watermelon in a similar manner, many felt this unnecessary use of plastic to be a blatant waste.
“If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn’t need to waste so much plastic on them,” Gordon captioned her since-viral tweet.
“We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel,” Whole Foods replied.
Surprisingly, not everyone agrees with Whole Foods’ decision.
“If we’re being perfectly honest here, I love oranges, but despite peeling them. I would consider buying a pre-peeled orange,” tweeted @skyepascall.
“What about the people that actually have problems and cannot peel the oranges themselves? This was apparently useful for them,” added @L_Trovato.