Whole Foods fights back against FTC in rare corporate move

With the FTC, argues Whole Foods Markets (NYSE: WFMI), it's personal. Ever since the federal agency began its review over the company's merger with Wild Oats Markets about a year and a half ago, Whole Foods says, the deck has been stacked against the organic and natural foods store chain. What's more, the FTC has continued to pursue Whole Foods to undo its deal even though the merger closed in August 2007, after the FTC lost its first challenge to the merger in federal court. Just last week, reports of an intrusive subpoena had many watchers crying foul over Whole Foods' behavior; this week, the FTC is getting its own harsh spotlight.

Whole Foods is appealing to Congress, and yesterday filed a lawsuit to stop the FTC from continuing its challenge to the long-completed merger. The FTC is running a rigged game, says CEO John Mackey, and what's more -- "we would be better off today if we hadn't done this deal" with Wild Oats. With the depressed economy (and, grocery analysts like myself would argue, Whole Foods' inability to develop a cohesive mission that resonated with sustainability-conscious shoppers), Whole Foods sales have been bottoming out, and the debt the company accrued to complete the merger is now weighing heavy on the balance sheet.

Indeed, this battle over a minority of the grocery market -- a minority the FTC inexplicably argues is called "premium and natural grocery" and is unfairly dominated by Whole Foods -- has gone on long enough.