Image courtesy of NPR

Whole Foods, the infamous grocery store of choice for President Obama to buy his arugula and for many other progressive shoppers, recently announced the launch of a Halal line of food products.

The Halal products meet Muslim dietary standards.  This promotion was launched in recognition of the holy month of Ramadan in August .

Sounds like a pretty good marketing plan.  Like the aisles of Easter-themed candy, matzah for Passover.

But one branch of the store did not buy into the program.

The Houston Press discovered this curious internal email. It seems some were nervous about ‘Celebrating or promoting’ Ramadan.”

With the introduction of this line company wide, and the beginning of Ramadan last week, we posted a product giveaway on the Whole Story blog (on July 31) to generate awareness and interest in the products. Some people have misinterpreted the blog post to mean we are celebrating or promoting Ramadan in our stores. The misinterpretation has generated some negative feedback from a small segment of vocal and angry consumers and bloggers.

The “vocal and angry consumers” had been calling the promotion evidence of Whole Foods’ “anti-Israel” stance and “jihadist interests.”

When it looked like Whole Foods was caving into the criticism, another group of consumers became vocal.  Another customer wrote that she was

…disappointed to hear that Whole Foods has capitulated to a vocal minority that does not believe in the freedom to observe non-Christian religious practices in America

After the new controversy about the controversy began to pick up, Whole Foods announced that the email did NOT reflect the policy of the national Whole Foods chain.

According to a spokesperson for Whole Foods, the email was generated and sent by the leadership in the Southwest region branch.  The spokesperson went on to say that

The main thing that we want our customers to know is that this is a misunderstanding that stemmed from a couple of individuals.  We have talked to these people, we have corrected it … and hopefully this won’t happen again.

And the national chain went on to tweet

We’re extremely excited about offering halal products for our shoppers and we stand behind them AND our promotion of them.

Check out The Atlantic’s coverage for even more of the story.