On the afternoon of December 13th, the Whole Foods supermarket in West Hartford had a computer glitch.
Customers were backing up in line and there was no telling when the system would go back on line. The manager on duty and the employees had a quick confab and the decision was made to let customers have free groceries until the system was restored. A snowstorm was hitting outside and they didn’t want a delay caused by computers to add to their worries. No announcement to that effect was made. Customers learned of it as they got to the register and were told the groceries were free because they would not be penalized for the computer error.
All told $4000 in free groceries left the store before the computer. Surprisingly perhaps, the manager received (we’re told) no flack over the decision.
Now that the story is all over the internet, I think it turned out to be a good publicity move worth far more to the chain than any advertising $4,000 could buy!
From the Hartford Courant
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