== Is it OK to love Whole Foods? = By Mark Morford

The overpriced ultra-yuppie grocery wonderland gets so much right, you want to hate it

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/10/03/notes100307.DTL&nl=fix

It's like some sort of drug, something warm and happy and dangerous and visceral they inject into the lighting system or mist all over the carefully constructed mountains of pornographic produce or slather all over the nearly religious seafood and meat departments because, oh my sweet Jesus with a Le Creuset ramekin and 10 pounds of artisanal Gruyere, there really is something frighteningly addictive about the glorious hellbeast grocerypalooza known as Whole Foods.

It's like this otherworldly vibration, this wickedly overblown slice of succulent, obnoxious, must-have lifestyle nirvana for the health-conscious semi-progressive well-moneyed hipster set and also those who really, really want to think of themselves as such.

And best/worst of all, it's all overlaid with this amazing sheen of healthy, pro-green, socially responsible attitude that effortlessly chips away at your cynicism and seems to suggest a bit more of a statement than just, you know, "Hey kids, if you shop here, if you buy into the ethos and if you eat the right kind of organic lettuce and can afford our huge tubs of crab-artichoke bisque, well, you are on the right track. You are, in fact, approaching enlightenment."

All these thoughts collided when I found myself perusing the new 'n' dazzling Potrero Hill Whole Foods location just recently, just one of something like 87 million locations popping up in semi-upscale 'hoods all over the country like manna, like oases of luscious comestibles, like goddamn temples of all that you want to believe is right and good and possible with food and everything possibly related to food and much that isn't but you just don't care because it's all so goddamn tempting and tasteful and harmonious. ...

Not all corporations are evil.

Still, Whole Foods is a great improvement, especially when compared with Wal-Mart. Don't know if they're unionized, but they do quite a few things right - lots of organic and sustainable produce, encourage healthier food, etc.

They're no angels, but they're not entire screw-ups either.

I agree.

They're the largest non-union retail food store. After Wal-Mart.

since it would have resulted in a near monopoly.

The Whole Foods CEO is an asshole. However, the help is treated relatively well there, one thing that drives their prices a little higher.

I usually end up at the local food co-op except for specialty items that are stocked only by Wild Oats or Whole Foods.

In fact, the $18.50/share from my Wild Oats holdings hit my account last week. This was settled by the courts more than month ago.

and a court had held it up and then canceled it.

If that's not the case, I sincerely hope they don't start closing Wild Oats stores in this town.

I need my King Arthur Flour connection.

But it went to court and the judge sided quite strongly with WFM. Basically, every grocery store is offering organics these days, and the FTC tried to come up with some odd argument that the WFM "experience" was a monopoly. That argument didn't fly, and the deal was finalized.

Good food, but man are they expensive...which is why they are nicknamed "Whole Paycheck".

If they close off my King Arthur connection, I'm going to be very pissed off at them.

as of 2002 according to the Google
http://slac.rso.wisc.edu/LocalnewsWholeFoods.html

The company refused to recognize it.

Thanks for telling me, I should spend more than 20s fact-finding huh?

Every now and then we pick up some organic oatmeal for the baby but if we did all our shopping there it would gut us.

glides right over Whole Foods' union busting. Like the people who fall all over themselves buying fair-trade, shade-grown recycled-water coffee taken from consenting beans from the union-busted Starbucks barista.

in July 2007.

WF wasn't allowed to buy rival Wild Oats because someone found out that over the years Mackey wrote anonymous posts to chat rooms slamming Wild Oats.

The buyout is complete. The Wild Oats stores will gradually be rebranded as Whole Foods stores.

I know for a fact that their workers are not unonized. They do pay them a fair wage...at least $10/hour around here, which is WAY better than Wal-Mart. Very few grocery stores have union workers nowadays, there are only three in all of St. Louis; Dierberg's, Schnucks, and Shop n Save. I also think Whole Foods does a good job when it comes to being green, and they also buy from local farmers. The fact that they are non-union does bother me even though they pay well however.

are a smaller version of whole foods and WAY cheaper. They are not as sophisticated but they are friggin awesome. Especially here in Vegas, we had to deal with the overpriced grocery store chains. Then precious Sunflower Markets came along and wallah. And the chain is growing bigger and bigger. They are awesome. Whole foods is a cool store but I'd rather get twice as much for my money.

www.sfmarkets.com

..are also good regional options. High quality, better prices than WFM.

Squeaky-clean, really nice people, and great produce and meat.

I have to drive 5 miles to get there but I have to drive even further for anyplace else.

I love my Sunflower market!

"The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover. But there's still a lot of people in Berkeley who feel like it's OK to lie down with us. We're doing fine."

Quoted from In These Times.

first -- they aren't unionized.

second -- their carbon footprint is not at all small.
they import organic from cali and south america to ship to stores like in durham.

that's not ok.

but sometimes they have what i need for cooking.

and my philosophy is that food must serve cooking -- otherwise -- why bother?

but that's just me.

That stuff can be grown just about anywhere.

guy won't ever get from China..he's adamant.

We mostly get it from right here in New York except the the short season before it starts producing here and everyone has eaten all their winter storage.

And our produce guy grows the best.

they GROW organic produce in north carolina -- why not buy it from there?

I'm assuming you're talking about Durham NC rather than Durham NH.

The thing I've noticed (I've noticed many things, but this one sticks out) is how strange and anonymous our store is. At other stores locally, people will look yo in the eye, or somehow acknowledge your existence as a human being. Not so at Whole Foods in Durham--and here I'm talking about the customers, not the employees. The employees are friendly. The other customers, for the most part, all seem to be in a big frickin hurry, far, far too busy to acknowledge the presence of other human beings around them. Nobody looks you in the eye. I feel as if I'm in a big city, certainly not in the South. Maybe it's the crowding--our store is small and always full. The other customers seem like jerks. It could be that a lot of them are there for some kind of strange status, I don't know.

As for cooking, you can tell their priorities--only about half the store's square footage is for groceries, the rest is prepared food, and a cafe where the sort of people who really want to be seen having a coffee in Whole Foods can sit and do so.

And, of course, they wouldn't let me stand in their parking lot and hand out Kerry stuff during the last presidential election.

I shop at our Kroger, at least they are unionized.

my thing is that when i'm there -- A} it's close and B} the quality is pretty damn good for a smaller town.
i'm used to the bay area -- and i'm spoiled in terms of quality and stuff like that.

and boy -- for the business they do -- they could sure stand a bigger store.

of that place. Even when I can't really afford it, I'll go in just to buy some steel cut oats by the pound and walk around letting it all seep in.

the difference between local super-market-X and Whole Foods customer service can't even begin to be compared.

So expensive, but I buy it anyway. Their products are excellent though.

They put so much care into everything else, but I have had better bread in prison than what is available at Whole Foods.

Lots of their products changing -- management changes -- employee sentiments are not the same --
store loaded with sugar, chocolate, salt, chips -- overload of junk foods --

and have seen it on the inevitable rise since the '70's..though, there's a lot of things I don't like about all that. Especially the bigger companies gobbling up the smaller ones, like Hain's did with Garden Of Eatin' which made Garden Of Eatin' stop making their blue corntillas that you could buy fresh in California and have shipped to other places I lived like Colorado, Hawaii, and New York. I had been enjoying the heck outta them for over 20 years and then POOF-no more. RATZ!

So we get these organic yellow tortillas from New Mexico that aren't bad. We're fortunate here at the co-op because we can have a lot of the food that Whole Foods has at a non-profit price.

I can really relate to what Mark Morford is sayin'!

It's huge. It's huge and beautiful. It's huge, beautiful, and there are numerous food bars where you can sit and enjoy a small meal and a nice glass of wine. I love it.