For conscious shoppers at Whole Foods, it was a nightmare to learn that the company had US prison labor in its supply chain. After more than a year of negative publicity culminating in protests outside of its stores in Houston, Texas, Whole Foods announced last week that it will stop sourcing foods that are made with prison labor. Happy ending? Not so fast.

Corporations like Whole Foods need to be held accountable for the human rights abuses facilitated and supported within their supply chains. In the US market of prison labor, however, consumers should be aware of who extracts the lion's share of value from prison labor: federal and state governments.

The model of prison labor highlighted in the Whole Foods story involves a government-owned, corrections-operated organization partnering with for profit businesses in the production of a product or service. Corporations and industries involved in this kind of supply chain are many, and include the automotive industry, garments and as this story demonstrates, grocery products – even those of the "artisanal" variety.

However, the far more common versions of prison labor come in the form of in-house manufacturing, where the products or materials manufactured by incarcerated workers are sold to other government entities (such as schools, government offices, the military) or "big house" work, where prisoners are put to work in jobs that support the upkeep of the prison, such as running the kitchens, doing building maintenance or janitorial work.

Consider that, in the United States this labor can legally be completely involuntary and uncompensated. Refusal to work can and does come with harsh punishment. And wages, if paid at all, are far below minimum wage for the same jobs held by workers on the outside. – The Guardian, Oct. 7, 2015