Whole Foods' Walter Robb talks up conscious capitalism

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Whole Foods co-president and chief operating office Walter Robb was in Portland this week and broke the news to a business audience: Business, he said, has a branding problem.

What started with MCI spread to Enron and continues to play out in headlines of Wall Street bonuses is a public relations problem of such scale that it clouds what Robb holds as a fundamental truth and a well-kept secret about business.

“Democratic capitalism has been the greatest force for good in this country and in the world compared to any other economic system,” Robb said. “And business itself can be, and is, the greatest force for good in my opinion.”

Robb was expounding on the Whole Foods notion of conscious capitalism, a view of business that aligns stakeholders, employees and the business’ leadership toward a deeper purpose than just profit.

In Robb’s case that purpose is making healthy foods available to a wider swath of the population, especially to poverty-stricken areas such as Detroit’s inner city. “I want to see the day when natural foods are available in inner city neighborhoods,” Robb said. “And I’m going to make that happen.”

Not surprising for someone that has spent his professional career selling natural and organic foods, Robb makes the connection between the health care issue in this country and its diet.

But he also acknowledges that Whole Foods, which had $8 billion in sales last year — compared with Safeway’s $41 billion — has strayed from its original goals.

“We’ve drifted too far in the fancy-pants direction,” Robb said. “We’re going back to our roots of healthy food.”

The video clip below, shot at the Portland Business Journal’s Power Breakfast, features Robb’s take on the health care issue.