Whole Foods calls meeting with key vendors as tensions flare

The changes come as both Whole Foods and the industry it helped launch undergoes transformation.

Organic products are now available in nearly 20,000 natural food stores and nearly 3 out of 4 conventional grocery stores, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That means Whole Foods is competing in one of the fiercest competitive retail environments; the act of simply selling “organic” is no longer sufficient on its own to bring customers into its store.

Many of these brands congregated at the industry’s annual largest convention, Expo West, this past week in Anaheim, California. Amid the revelry and morning yoga classes, was a fight for investment, attention and shelf space.

Under that competitive backdrop, few brands said frustrations with Whole Foods were sufficient enough to drive them away from the Austin grocer towards competitors like Kroger, Albertsons and Aldi. The retail environment is too tough and the number of similar rivals too vast.

Meantime, the grocer last Tuesday emailed employees its refreshed core values, a document that CEO John Mackey spent weeks putting together, alongside senior leadership, according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC. Its “statement of interdependence” had last been updated in 1997, according to the document, before that, 1992 and 1988.

The decision to make updates, which referenced Amazon as the company’s owner, was driven by Mackey and not Amazon, sources told CNBC.