After Protests, Whole Foods Will Stop Selling Cheese and Fish Produced with

NEW YORK (AP) – Whole Foods will stop selling products made using a prison labor program after a protest against the practice at one of its stores in Texas.

The inmates are reportedly paid as little as 74 cents a day for the goods, which are then distributed to local companies Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy and Quixotic Farming andsold by Whole Foods at a hefty markup price.

The company, claiming that it wanted to aid prisoners’ reentry into society, said that tilapia, trout and goat cheese produced through a Colorado inmate program had been on store shelves, since 2011 at a few stores.

But after complaints by customers, the company will move away from the practice.

A spokesman for Whole Foods, which has suffered from huge stock market losses and allegations of overcharging this summer, announced the change earlier today.

Mauer said the programs can benefit inmates by giving them productive work and training in useful skills, but that there’s potential for exploitation, since companies typically pay far less for prison labor than they otherwise would. CCI administers prison work programs across the state. Just look at Animal Planet’s Pitbulls and Parolees for a system that seems to work.

The decision was made following a protest at a Whole Foods in Houston. The program employed more than 1,800 inmates previous year and has a goal to double the program over the next decade. (NASDAQ:WFM) go on to generate huge profits out of the cheap labor.

The cow milk used for Haystack’s Buttercup mixed-milk cheese is supplied by Windsor Dairy and Aurora Organic Dairy, but “we had already been talking with other sources for different milk products, like pasture-raised milk, which is really hot right now”, he said.

Colorado Correctional Industries said in its 2014 annual report that 80 percent of inmates who work at least six months stay out of jail a year after release, compared with the national average of 62 percent.

These products have been sold in Whole Foods stores across the USA since 2011.