Comedian Stephen Colbert addressed Monday night the controversy surrounding a now-abandoned in which the chain sold products made by businesses using the labor of Colorado prisoners.
“It’s really be bumming me out to see Whole Food getting into a whole lot of organic, gluten-free trouble lately,” Colbert said on his “The Late Show.”
“Prison labor?” he added. “But everything at Whole Foods is supposed to be cage-free.”
Whole Foods stores will stop selling tilapia, trout and goat cheese products made by the Colorado work program by April, the Austin, Texas-based grocery operation says. It made the decision after a protest at one of its stores in Houston, where some customers cited discomfort with the wages paid to the inmates.
Colorado prison officials have , saying the operation, Colorado Correctional Industries, employs hundreds of inmates throughout Colorado’s 20 prisons to give offenders job-training opportunities.
“The whole time I thought Farmer Bob was making my goat cheese,” Colbert said. “It turns out it was some guy named Spider.”
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul
