The Whole Foods Chantilly Cake Saga Shows Complaining Works

Take the recent furor toward Whole Foods over its signature Berry Chantilly cake, a vanilla cake layered with berries and cream cheese mascarpone frosting. The cake has developed a cult following over the years. Chaya Conrad, now of Bywater Bakery, created the cake in 2005 when she was an employee at Whole Foods in New Orleans. From there, it spread across Whole Foods in the South, especially after Whole Foods employees were displaced after Hurricane Katrina, and eventually became a national hit.

But in late September rumors began swirling that Whole Foods, now owned by Amazon, was discontinuing the cake, after TikTok user @mylegalera said she was told by an employee that the slices were changing. In an attempt to quell nerves, Whole Foods ended up confirming the worst: The company told USA Today that the cake wasn’t going anywhere — it was just changing the recipe for the slices. “Previously, our Berry Chantilly by-the-slice cake program varied by store location,” Whole Foods Market said in a statement. “We recently aligned the flavor profile, size, packaging, and price so customers will have the same high-quality experience in each of our stores.”

What that alignment looked like — replacing the fresh berries with a thick layer of jam that’s easier to freeze and ship — was something many customers saw as a cheapening of a good product.

Unlike with my beloved Phish Sticks, the outrage was loud enough for Whole Foods to realize it had to listen. “Customer feedback was clear,” Whole Foods told Axios, confirming that it would be returning the slices to their original form. The company further confirmed this in a TikTok comment (because that’s how corporate communications go nowadays), saying “the single slices are anticipated to go back to the way they were by the end of the week.”

It’s easy to become nihilistic about speaking out against wrongdoing in the world; so often protests and civil disobedience and calls to senators result in absolutely nothing changing. But this goes to show that sometimes, bullying works.

Ok yes, getting berries back in the chantilly cake is not the same as ending U.S. funding for war or getting Roe v. Wade back on the books, but we must take our wins where we can get them. Who can we bully next?