In late September, Whole Foods quietly delivered the news that an estimated 1,500 employees would be culled over the course of the next two months, despite the grocery chain’s intent to continue expanding nationwide. This announcement comes quickly on the heels of a New York City overcharging scandal, legal accusations of securities fraud and, lest we forget, the chain’s much-ridiculed $6 “asparagus water.”

Arguably, the pro-worker story that Whole Foods tells about itself, its values and its products is one of the core selling points that convinces consumers to pay a higher price for their groceries at a time when Walmart remains the single largest employer in the United States. So what happens when “conscious capitalism” turns out to be nothing more than a well-executed marketing strategy grafted onto business as usual?

Whole Foods’ recent mass layoff of many tenured buyers, marketers and other administrative wageworkers was rationalized in a statement by the company as a measure taken to “lower prices for its customers and invest in technology upgrades” and stay competitive in the grocery retail market – a motive that has troubled remaining employees.

“I gave my notice because I don’t agree with the tactics they use in order to grow,” a Memphis-area Whole Foods employee told Truthout, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. “Unlike Whole Foods Market, my values actually matter,” she added, referencing the “Values Matter” ad campaign put out by the company earlier this year. The campaign highlighted the company’s supposed “Core Values,” which include a promise to “support Team Member happiness.”

Bad PR incidents such as layoffs and federal lawsuits have become pedestrian costs of doing business for many profit-driven, publicly traded corporations. However, they may constitute the beginning of the end for a grocer that makes its name – and justifies its notoriously high prices – with its stated commitment to ethical business practices. Whole Foods cofounder and staunch libertarian John Mackey extols the ostensible virtues of his capitalist praxis in his 2013 memoir-cum-manifesto Conscious Capitalism. In Mackey’s neoliberal utopia, profits reaped by businesses operating under “authentic” (i.e. “conscious”) capitalism that prioritize people and planet before profit are assuredly greater than those generated by conventional business practice, yet he argues that profit inevitably follows these ethical missions.