As Bru touched upon, organic and natural foods, now a $15 billion industry, is a major trend in United States. At the vanguard of organic grocery stores, Whole Foods, continually experienced robust profits and growth. Last week, they announced the purchase of its top rival, Wild Oats Markets, for $500 million. Although Whole Foods only recently opened a store in Madison, John Mackey and his girlfriend actually founded the company over 25 years ago. Just last week, the NPR program Marketplace, interviewed Whole Foods John Mackey. The short interview not only provides the inspiration for starting an organic food store, but also its history and future trends.
John Mackey Interview
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Whole Foods may have led the way in bringing organics to a wider audience, but some former Whole Foods devouts are now questioning the companies mission and strategy.
According to an article in yesterday's New York Times:
"While many shoppers find the new stores exhilarating places to shop, the company also faces critics who feel it has strayed from its original vision. In angry postings on blogs, they charge that the store is not living up to its core values — in particular, protecting the environment and supporting organic agriculture and local farmers. In interviews, some of the customers who describe themselves as committed to these values say they have become disillusioned and taken their business elsewhere."
Is Whole Foods Straying From Its Roots?
Even if you have organics, it's important to feature local foods to cut down on carbon emissions and fuel use required for long-distance transport. I'm not actually sure how much emphasis Whole Foods puts on local products or whether that varies from store to store. Anyone know?
One time I went to Copps and wanted to buy green peppers, but they were all out of the regular ones, so I had to get organic ones. Instead of paying $0.89/pound, I paid $3.99/pound. And they went bad really fast.
Find a way to bring the price anywhere even remotely close to the non-organic price, and I'll buy the organic food.
Adam
Let's just say this...at the Whole Foods I usually shop at (since it's not the farmers market/CSA season), they had yellow peppers imported from Israel.
Whole Foods really does have to become more conscious of the environment as a whole. One problem (as I was telling cgb) is that it caters to the "health foods" demographic who don't necessarily care about the source of the food, just the composition.
Adam, there are many ways to get organic food for cheap. If you join a CSA, you pay a lump sum up front, but then get fresh, local (and usually organic) vegetables delivered to you every week. The boxes are pretty large, so you can utilize economies of scale to bring down the price per vegetable.
Whole Foods actually has a concierge. I met the concierge for the Whole Foods in Milwaukee while dinning at Whole Foods for a five course meal, another story, but I think she might be able to help us answer this question. I am going to Whole Foods tomorrow and will ask about this.
I went to Whole Foods and talked with the concierge. They do not know daily the number or percent of items that are local, but she did say for obvious reasons this time of the year there are less items. Items such as produce, list where they come from. She also said that Whole Foods tries to use local growers as long as they meet the company's quality standards, can deliver the food to the stores, and can provide Whole Foods with the quantity they need. They also had a booklet on locally grown foods.
"To Whole Foods Market, supporting our local growers and food producers is extremely important... In addition, buying local conserves energy and enables us to contribute to the success of the local growers and economy."
The booklet shows pictures of the various local farms they buy from and a brief description of the foods provided. The company is also a member of familyfarmed.org which supports a market for locally grown foods. As you might be able to tell, I think Whole Foods has very tasty food.
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