Amazon grocery store chain removes perk customers love | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Founded in 1980, Whole Foods Market began as a small grocery store in Austin, Texas, with a 19-person staff. Now, it has over 500 stores worldwide.

From its inception, the grocery store chain has been committed to sourcing all its products responsibly, fostering environmentally conscious practices, and serving local communities. This has earned it the title of the world’s leader in natural and organic foods.

⏰Get expert insights and actionable trade alerts from veteran investing experts and hedge fund managers. Join TheStreet Pro today and get first month FREE 🤑

In 2008, Whole Foods implemented the ‘bring-your-own-bag’ (BYOB) refund program to encourage the use of reusable bags and reduce or completely banish single-use plastic bags at all its grocery store locations.

This policy offered all Whole Foods customers who brought their own grocery bags a 10-cent refund.

However, after 17 years, Whole Foods announced it would terminate the BYOB policy this month. The grocery store chain states the program has now achieved its goal, as reusable bags have become standard practice at its locations.

Although this eco-friendly incentive is ending, Whole Foods still encourages all customers to maintain this environmentally conscious habit.

Whole Foods provided The Street with information about when the BYOB program started and its purpose. However, the grocery store chain has yet to issue a statement as to why the 10-cent credit was terminated.

Whole Foods Market paper bag.

Retailers launch their own reusable bag initiatives and states implement single-use plastic bans

Whole Foods (AMZN) became the first U.S. grocery store to ban disposable plastic bags at checkout and the first national retailer to eliminate all plastic straws from its cafés and coffee bars, as mentioned on its website.

Since pioneering the reusable bag initiative, many retailers, such as Aldi, Target (TGT) , Walmart (WMT) and Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM) , have followed suit by introducing their own eco-friendly initiatives to reduce single-use plastic bags or by only providing reusable bags at checkout counters in select locations.

Although the U.S. has yet to implement a single-use plastics ban at the federal level officially, 12 states have placed bans, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

Netizens react to Whole Food’s 10-cent bag credit removal

Once the news broke out about Whole Foods removing the 10-cent bag credit across all locations, netizens took to Reddit to express their opinions, and many were not happy about it.

One user on Reddit stated their stand by commenting, “On one hand, I feel so bad for all the front-end people that’ll have to deal with this. On the other hand, and as a former cashier, I can’t wait for people to stop asking for one item per reusable bag.”

More Retail News:

Another Reddit user commented, “I hate it. We make millions a day, and they want to take away a 10-cent incentive. Cheap and petty and is only gonna cause the CS teams grief.”

A Reddit user compared Whole Foods with its rivals by commenting, “It’s better than charging for bags like Sprouts and other places do.”

A Whole Foods employee anonymously asked where the extra money would be allocated, commenting, “That’s great news! Will this extra money go towards my happiness and better benefits?”