Whole Foods Selling Pre-Peeled Oranges

Whole Foods, the makers of the derided asparagus water, is now under fire after a woman tweeted out a picture of a row of oranges in plastic containers that had all been pre-peeled.

A picture of the oranges was tweeted on Thursday by Twitter user Nathalie Gordon who saw the original picture on Imgur of the peeled sumo mandarin orange selling for $5.99 a pound.

—Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) March 3, 2016

“If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn’t need to waste so much plastic on them,” Gordon wrote.

Her tweet went viral, and at the time of this post has been liked over 55,000 times and retweeted over 56,000. On Imgur, the photo was captioned “Are people really that lazy nowadays?” and was similarly popular with over 420,000 views.

It's unclear which Whole Foods store the picture originated from — a Whole Foods representative told Tech Insider the seasonal product was tried out in a "handful of stores" — but a lot of commenters were upset that the plastic seemed unnecessary and wasteful.

—Swiftie Be (@StephanieBe) March 3, 2016

—Suzi ♫ (@MessMakerPro) March 3, 2016

The picture received so much attention, in fact, that Whole Foods was forced to respond less than three hours later to Gordon. In a tweet, the social media account for Whole Foods said, “Definitely our mistake. These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel.”

—Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods) March 3, 2016

"Many of our customers love the convenience that our cut produce offers," a Whole Foods representative told TI. "Orange and tangerine slices have long been a staple favorite in our stores. We're glad some customers pointed it out so we could take a closer look and leave Sumos in their natural packaging—the peel.”

But while Gordon and Whole Foods don’t approve of the packaging, some people on Twitter were quick to point out that the pre-peeled mandarins could be helpful for anyone with mobility issues.