A sandwich-related pickle.
HOW can Whole Foods charge as much as they do for lettuce that's covered in dirt? –COOPER E., BOSTON, MA
Dear Mr. E – In the current consumer climate of the developed Western world, dirt symbolizes "real," earthy, true. Organic. Chemical-free. Your grandpa's crops. To many, that dirt will be a badge of its its origin, of its humble beginnings somewhere just below the topsoil, not a genetic engineering facility nestled quietly amongst the tall pines of a Boston 'burb. Whole Foods knows its customers value these things, almost irrationally, and therefore it won't spend the extra energy (and associated costs/manpower) to worry about quality-controlling such things. A man in their home office, likely a bearded chap with a pescetarian wife, has run the numbers and deemed these cosmetic deficiencies not worth the effort to eradicate them.
Forage on.
