Protesters to sing against Whole Foods

HYDE SQ.—An anti-Whole Foods Market group is attempting to boycott the grocer and will sing Christmas carol parodies against it in a Dec. 21 demonstration.

Whose Foods? Whose Community? aims to get the grocer to sign a community benefits agreement (CBA) with the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council (JPNC), even though the council has abandoned that effort.

“I know [some] folks wish we would go away and Whole Foods wishes we would go away,” said Whose Foods’ Ben Mauer. But, he said, the protesters remain concerned that the grocer is pushing the gentrification of Hyde Square.

Whole Foods Market did not respond to a Gazette email.

Mauer said Whose Foods believes it can create leverage for Whole Foods Market to return to the negotiating table with the JPNC.

Whose Foods protested the grocer’s arrival at 413 Centre St., including a Halloween costume protest on its Oct. 31 opening day. The protest next week will include “cheeky, funny” parody carols such as “Whole Foods the Snotty Neighbor” sung to the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” Mauer said.

Whose Foods’ attempted boycott began on Thanksgiving and is continuing. It has drawn roughly 300 supporters, Mauer said. A petition backing it on the website Change.org had 116 as of this week, though many were from outside the neighborhood and even from “United States Outlying Islands.”

The boycott is detailed at whosefoods.org.

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