Two unsuspecting Whole Foods customers each dropped $20 on their meals from the chain’s hot bar section. And they aren’t the first to make that mistake.
The Whole Foods hot bar features a variety of prepared foods. The concept is simple: Customers grab a box, fill it with the food items they want, and pay for the food by weight at checkout. According to Yahoo, the prices range from $8.99 to $13.99 per pound. The only problem is there isn’t really a way to tell how much the container of food is going to cost until they get to the checkout.
So it’s pretty understandable how one can make the mistake of paying more than they intended to for their container.
Madi and Marie (@marieemadison), on their joint TikTok, learned the hard way how the Whole Foods hot bar operates.
“POV: at Whole Foods not realizing that we had to pay per pound,” the text overlay on their video reads.
One of their boxes consists of green beans, rice, and chicken. And the other has chicken, strawberries, pasta, and corn in it. They shared in the caption that they paid $20 per box.
Their video was viewed over 252,000 times.
@marieemadison We ended up payng $20 per box 😭 #wholefoods #healthy #broke ♬ original sound – flopiana 😭🤟🏾😍👍🏽😕🥺🤣🤨
Not the first Whole Foods hot bar victims
In August, another Whole Foods hot bar customer shared that he accidentally paid $20 for just mac and cheese. Like the women, this customer also wasn’t aware that the grocery store charges per pound. And, similarly, in 2023, a woman shared her upset after she inadvertently dropped $26 at the hot bar.
Viewers of Madi and Marie let the women know they were in good company.
“Girl this happened to me,” one viewer stated.
“The mac n cheese is so good but is it really worth 20$ for a few mouthfuls,” a second remarked.
Whole Foods workers also weighed in.
“[I’m a] cashier at wholefoods and I feel so bad when people get their total and is way more than expected. I’m like … sorry,” one user wrote.
“The regret telling someone their coffee cup of Mac n cheese is 34.26,” a second agreed.
Does Whole Foods have weight scales?
“They should have scales at the hotbar,” one viewer suggested.
There is no weight scale at the hot bar section. However, Popsugar shared a hack for Whole Foods customers who want to find out the weights of their containers so they aren’t hit with surprise charges at checkout. If hot bar customers head over to the store’s produce section, there is a scale where they can weigh their boxes.
The Daily Dot reached out to Madi and Marie via TikTok comment and direct message. We also reached out to Whole Foods via press email.
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