Watch out for the pizza labeled "vegan" at Whole Foods.  I had some with some friends today, and after we finished eating it, we noticed that honey was one of the ingredients in the dough.

Oh, this must be the ones that are pre-made that you bring home to bake yourself? Because I don't think I've ever seen an ingredients label for any of the vegan pizza you get by the slice ready to eat.

I'll have to check that out. It's a pretty stupid mistake for Whole Foods to make if they did include honey in their supposedly vegan dough.

- Steve

Just to confirm, I went to the Whole Foods at Gateway Plaza today. I found a vegan mini sized pizza in the prepared foods section (not the deli, but the section beside it with all the food already in packages and stuff). The ingredients label did include "honey", even though it says "vegan" in big print. Last I checked, honey is not vegan. Someone should tell them. Honey is totally not needed in pizza crust anyway, which makes it even more strange.

- Steve

We had the made-to-order kind.  Probably had the same kind of label.  I'm sending them an e-mail now.

All right, this is the message I sent them.  If they don't respond within a few days, I guess one of us can give them a call.

To Whom It May Concern:

Hi, my name is Pete.  As a vegan in Austin, I love your stores and have usually had quite pleasant experiences with your various prepared foods, both at the Gateway and Lamar locations.  However, I had an incident this past Saturday that deserves your attention.

My friends (who are also vegan) and I ordered three large pizzas with Daiya cheese from the Gateway pizza station after helping one of the friends move.  After devouring the pies, I saw the ingredients list on the box in front of me.  It said "Vegan" in large letters up top, but upon closer examination, I noticed that it also said that it included breadcrumbs that had honey in them.  When we discussed this online earlier this evening, another friend said that the same ingredients list is used on the packaged pizzas to go, near the deli.  I wonder if it's the same for your downtown location as well.

This is a problem.  As vegans, we trust Whole Foods' reputation when it comes to a) labeling things correctly, b) avoiding cross-contamination, and c) understanding what vegan means.  Honey, as it should go without saying, is not vegan.  It's an animal product.  Items labeled as "Vegan" should not contain it.

Hopefully this complaint doesn't come across as being nitpicky.  I understand that strict veganism can be seen as frustratingly purist, and dealing with it can be confusing for omnivores.  That said, my friends and I don't consume it, and again, Whole Foods' reputation precedes itself regarding such matters.

I hope to enjoy your pizza again at some point soon.  Until then, I'll avoid it, and I'm guessing my friends will, too.  We've posted this online to let the local vegan community (as well as any others) know: http://www.veganaustin.org/topic.php?id=4404

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Pete

OK, they replied.  The correspondence is too long to fully reprint here (it includes the internal e-mail chain), but basically, it's all vegan now.   It was a mislabeling error for the pizzas from the hot pizza station, and both a mislabeling and ingredient mess-up for the to-go "fresh pack" pizzas.

The pizzas that we consumed from the hot pizza station the other day ARE vegan.  The dough ingredients are: wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, yeast, olive oil, salt, sugar.  The label that was on the boxes is the same one used for the to-go pies, but the ingredients are actually different, so hence the labeling error.

As for those to-go pies that actually did contain honey and were labeled as vegan, they'll start using the aforementioned dough used for the hot pies, so they actually will be vegan.  They've pulled the existing ones from the shelf at all their stores.

The guy who contacted me also wanted to let me know that they appreciated being aware of the problem, and didn't see it as nitpicky.  Their response has been quick and comprehensive.

So, yeah...go WF customer service.  :-)

Sweet!  Thanks for emailing them and getting them to fix the issue, Peter :-)

Very cool!! Happy to see such a pleasant response

Great job!!  Thanks for taking the time to e-mail them, and it's awesome to see Whole Foods respond so quickly.  I am going to e-mail them about the other items labeled "vegan" in the salad bar that contain honey.

Just picked up another "vegan" pizza from Whole Foods.  Though it still says "honey" in the breadcrumbs.

Here's my email to them:

"
Hi,   I noticed that you have "VEGAN" pizzas on your shelves, but on the ingredients label, it lists "honey", an animal product, as one of the ingredients.  One of my friends told me that he contacted you a few months ago in March and that you, Whole Foods, said that there wasn't any honey in the ingredients and that it was a mislabeled product.   He said that the labeling would be fixed to not included "honey".

Please, please, please fix the labeling.  We need to know if the product really is vegan, or if it does actually have honey in the ingredients.  It shouldn't take several months to fix product labeling.

Thanks,
Jacob Brown

I e-mailed them recently and just got a response:

Hi Shannon,

We just corrected this problem.  We have new crust and it does not contain honey.

Thanks,

Mark


Mark Martinez
Associate Store Team Leader Lamar
525 N Lamar
Austin, TX 78703
512-476-1206 x22273

Did they ever fix the label?  

I haven't been to Whole Foods recently....

Hmm.....

I was there last week and forgot to check.  Ate a whole pizza in one sitting... it wasn't a good day...

Don't know about fixing the pizza labels but their bakery items are frequently mislabeled at the Arlington location, too.