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Years ago, I stopped going to Whole Foods Markets. I was an original co-op participant going way back, one of the local ones was even named Whole Foods. I came to the conclusion that Whole Foods Market was a bit of PR blurring. The insides looked pretty, but their use of "whole foods" didn't square with my past experience of what that meant.
Recently a question came up with a local person recommended the store for protein powder. All I could say was that I always found Whole Foods to be pricey. The person was living on $5 and hour and didn't seem at all like the customer profile Whole Foods aimed at. But that did make me want to visit a store to see if time had led to big changes I'd missed.
Short answer: No Pretty much the same store. Prices vary from a little high to very high. But the customers can afford them or the store would be o ut of business.
But I did catch a political statement by their CEO that made me curious. So I websurfed to find out more things. I follow FDA recall notices, and Whole Foods have had a bunch. They are really no better than a WalMart or Target on quality. Which is odd since they base their upscale pricing on "our quality is superior".
Now I've found out a couple of other things. Their top management is anti-union. The CEO has fought unionization campaigns in the Tea Party heartland of Wisconsin. Also, they "endorsed" a California initiative on genetically modified foods labeling. But they route money to politicians who claim the labeling is a bad idea. So that seems pretty much a PR campaign. I also notice that no matter what you Google with "Whole Foods Market", their links come up first. Which makes me wonder how they pull that off. You fill a whole screen with their web pages on every issue. Can you pay Google for that. If you have a lot of money, can you game Google to do that?
At this point, their prices have become seondary. If they can't go all in for truly natural foods (not created in a lab), they aren't "whole foods". It is a matter of definition, and they were late in the use of the phrase whole foods. Like all corporate chains, you take your health in your own hands if you go there. Best to stay on top of the FDA recalls. Meanwhile, I'll go back to stores where my shares give me voting rights.
Whole Foods are pleasant stores to shop in and where I live, its the only real alternative to Wal-Mart or Target. They also have a much wider selection. I'll keep shopping there until I have a better, cheaper option that's not Wal-Mart or Target.
Years ago, I stopped going to Whole Foods Markets. I was an original co-op participant going way back, one of the local ones was even named Whole Foods. I came to the conclusion that Whole Foods Market was a bit of PR blurring. The insides looked pretty, but their use of "whole foods" didn't square with my past experience of what that meant.
Recently a question came up with a local person recommended the store for protein powder. All I could say was that I always found Whole Foods to be pricey. The person was living on $5 and hour and didn't seem at all like the customer profile Whole Foods aimed at. But that did make me want to visit a store to see if time had led to big changes I'd missed.
Short answer: No Pretty much the same store. Prices vary from a little high to very high. But the customers can afford them or the store would be o ut of business.
But I did catch a political statement by their CEO that made me curious. So I websurfed to find out more things. I follow FDA recall notices, and Whole Foods have had a bunch. They are really no better than a WalMart or Target on quality. Which is odd since they base their upscale pricing on "our quality is superior".
Now I've found out a couple of other things. Their top management is anti-union. The CEO has fought unionization campaigns in the Tea Party heartland of Wisconsin. Also, they "endorsed" a California initiative on genetically modified foods labeling. But they route money to politicians who claim the labeling is a bad idea. So that seems pretty much a PR campaign. I also notice that no matter what you Google with "Whole Foods Market", their links come up first. Which makes me wonder how they pull that off. You fill a whole screen with their web pages on every issue. Can you pay Google for that. If you have a lot of money, can you game Google to do that?
At this point, their prices have become seondary. If they can't go all in for truly natural foods (not created in a lab), they aren't "whole foods". It is a matter of definition, and they were late in the use of the phrase whole foods. Like all corporate chains, you take your health in your own hands if you go there. Best to stay on top of the FDA recalls. Meanwhile, I'll go back to stores where my shares give me voting rights.
I went a few times before I was aware of the CEO's politics. I was looking for local, free range beef. The only free range they had was from Australia - and we were in California. Now, there are quite a few free range beef producers right here in California. So why go to the expense and ecologically unfriendly extreme of shipping beef half way around the world!?!??! Didn't buy anything. Never went back.
I could not care less about their politics. But the food prices....yike, I will stick with Walmart and any other store that regularly has marked-down meat.............myself, not buying into the yuppie meat trend that pushes overpriced meat.
Years ago, I stopped going to Whole Foods Markets. I was an original co-op participant going way back, one of the local ones was even named Whole Foods. I came to the conclusion that Whole Foods Market was a bit of PR blurring. The insides looked pretty, but their use of "whole foods" didn't square with my past experience of what that meant.
Recently a question came up with a local person recommended the store for protein powder. All I could say was that I always found Whole Foods to be pricey. The person was living on $5 and hour and didn't seem at all like the customer profile Whole Foods aimed at. But that did make me want to visit a store to see if time had led to big changes I'd missed.
Short answer: No Pretty much the same store. Prices vary from a little high to very high. But the customers can afford them or the store would be o ut of business.
But I did catch a political statement by their CEO that made me curious. So I websurfed to find out more things. I follow FDA recall notices, and Whole Foods have had a bunch. They are really no better than a WalMart or Target on quality. Which is odd since they base their upscale pricing on "our quality is superior".
Now I've found out a couple of other things. Their top management is anti-union. The CEO has fought unionization campaigns in the Tea Party heartland of Wisconsin. Also, they "endorsed" a California initiative on genetically modified foods labeling. But they route money to politicians who claim the labeling is a bad idea. So that seems pretty much a PR campaign. I also notice that no matter what you Google with "Whole Foods Market", their links come up first. Which makes me wonder how they pull that off. You fill a whole screen with their web pages on every issue. Can you pay Google for that. If you have a lot of money, can you game Google to do that?
At this point, their prices have become seondary. If they can't go all in for truly natural foods (not created in a lab), they aren't "whole foods". It is a matter of definition, and they were late in the use of the phrase whole foods. Like all corporate chains, you take your health in your own hands if you go there. Best to stay on top of the FDA recalls. Meanwhile, I'll go back to stores where my shares give me voting rights.
Progressive people that shop there are just plain stupid.
I used to go to that store on Lamar St many years ago. My favorite lunch was the "vegetarian chili". It was small and dinky just like you say. It's nothing like what it was.
I have been there and it is pricey but i do notice they carry better quality products... Recall has little to do with "quality" and more with manufacturing problems.... All you have to do is EAT their food and you can tell a difference... But i suspect you are more interested in politics than food quality...
I've eaten their food. I ate it tonight. But if you READ what you quoted, I raised numerous issues, the most important of which is the use of "whole" in their name. You can say what you want about "flavor", but that is totally subjective. Flavorful foods and "whole foods" are not equivalent. You can have a perfectly fresh item born in a lab and not shipped from the other side of the word that does not qualify as "whole". I think there's probably nothing their corporate machine puts out that is really trustworthy. And that is more important to me than any other issue. Also, the care they use in choosing suppliers is not a "political" issue. They charge enough to insure the highest standards in production of food. When they get recalls, that means their suppliers cut corners. Why pay more than Aldi Food Market prices to a corporation that doesn't ride their suppliers on health issues?
Progressive people that shop there are just plain stupid.
I agree, but the fact that they're adamantly non-union might make it worth giving them another look.
I once knew a fella who owned a produce store and one day I saw him removing the little oval stickers on peaches that had been trucked in from some other state. I asked him what on earth he was doing in taking all that time hand-picking off all those stickers. He told me he had a customer who was buying crates of them and reselling them at a Farmer's Market in a ritzy suburb, where she told people she grew them in her family orchard. There's your truth in advertising, folks!
People who think food is better from those places are easily fooled.
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