The 3 Dumbest Things About Whole Foods Market

Forbes ^ | August 18, 2014 | Steven Salzberg

[EveningStar]

I have a love-hate relationship with Whole Foods Market. On the one hand, I love their fresh produce, their baked goods, and many other food choices there. On the other hand, they have embraced anti-science positions in the interest of keeping everything "natural."

[discostu]

I’m not sure any of those are dumb. I mean they limit my shopping there, but I’m not their target market. Whole Foods is too hippy granola for me, Trader Joes and whatever Sunflower changed their name too is as far as I’m willing to push into “anti-agribusiness” grocery world.

[ErnBatavia]

Bingo X 5...

[Texan5]

Aren’t there locker plants where you live-what places process into roasts, steaks, etc and package the deer and other animals during hunting season?

[MD Expat in PA]

I used to sometimes go to the Whole Foods store when I lived in Baltimore. I don’t know what they are like now, but I recall back when I went, they sold both “organic” and so called “conventional”, e.g. non organic produce but they were labeled as such but both were more expensive than my local grocery store. The only reason I would ever go there is when I wanted to cook something special that required ingredients that I just couldn’t find in my local grocery store like ingredients to make paella (real saffron and very fresh clams and real Spanish chorizo sausage for instance).

Their produce section was amazing, full of very fresh produce of all kinds. And I loved their cheese department, one of the few places I could find real imported Norwegian Gjetost. I also loved their seafood department. I’ve had some very bad experiences buying supposedly fresh seafood at my regular local grocery store (I bought a bag of muscles from Super Fresh – what used to be A&P but when I got them home, they smelled so bad, so rancid and reeked of ammonia that I nearly threw up. I put them in a heavy trash bag and took them back to the store for a refund but the store manager at first refused to refund my money, trying to tell me that’s what muscles are supposed to smell like ) but the seafood at Whole Food was very fresh and premo, although it was also at a premo price.

I also recall buying veal and some very good spring lamb at Whole Foods. I got a cookbook from a neighbor and good friend one Christmas, a Williams and Sonoma cookbook; Snow Country Cooking that had a recipe for Braised Veal Shanks (Osso Buco) that I really wanted to make for her and her husband as a “thank you” and I went from grocery store to grocery store looking for veal shanks and couldn’t find them or any veal in any store until I finally found them at Whole Foods. And the guy at the meat counter was very friendly and very helpful as were all the Whole Foods employees I encountered.

Now some of their customers did, as someone said, look rather “crunchy”. I saw a fair number of pasty looking, vegetarian, dreadlock wearing, smelling of patchouli oil PETA types but in all fairness, none of them gave me a hard time and I also saw a lot of upper income types and just “foodies”, people who like to cook like me.

Now that I live in central PA, the only major grocery chains are Giant and Weis. Giant is somewhat better than Weis but I’d really love to see a Wegmans open up near me. The closest one to me is in Hunt Valley MD and Mechanicsburg PA, both an hour drive away.

[reed13k]

yea its for a few specific items for us too. My wife especially likes the fishmongers because she can get fresher fish (in season) then she can at other places... which being the midwest is already limited. Beyond that maybe a few dry items like soybeans and such.

[OldNewYork]

As atrocious as the politics of many of their shoppers are, is freedom of consumer choice really an unforgivable thing? Cherry-picking studies that agree with your pre-judged position, regardless what side of this you’re on, is not actually science.

[SoothingDave]

Local butcher shops. But they don’t have storage that I have ever heard of.

I have never heard the words “locker” and “plant” used together before.

[trisham]

I don’t have a problem with any of that. If someone doesn’t like what they offer, they can shop elsewhere.

[trisham]

Whole Foods also has a wonderful cheese department.

[Texan5]

It never occurred to me that they weren’t everywhere, although I’ve never had any reason to go to one except in Texas. There was one on the main highway not far from the ranch-the unlucky cattle and hogs were taken there to be turned into cuts of meat and wrapped for the freezer.

[SoothingDave]

We don’t have meat production here at huge scales. Dairy and corn, yes. Vast ranches of cattle, no.

[Henry Hnyellar]

Yep. The dumbest thing about Whole Foods is the people that shop there.

[Popman]

——. Homeopathic remedies are the ultimate scam.——

I would not paint with such a broad brush....

My daughter has psoriasis and takes a homeopathic remedy that works quite well...

[TexasGator]

“I would not paint with such a broad brush....

My daughter has psoriasis and takes a homeopathic remedy that workscam.s quite well...”

Do you know what a homeopathic remedy really is? I doubt it. I repeat, homeopathic remedies are pure scam.

[TexasGator]

Read this and stop wasting your money on a scam.

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html

[Dante3]

The large Whole Foods in Northern Virginia (Chantilly?) provided delicious meals that were cheaper than in restaurants - their poached salmon, prime rib, Cuban ox tails, and omelets made to order were tasty. I loved their breakfast oatmeal.

Also they had reasonably priced sour dough bread and expensive Latvian rye bread with apricots that they carried occasionally a while back.

[warsaw44]

Ha! Fresh Pond but I suspect the behavior is the same in all three. You should see the mayhem in the parking lot during a busy time period. “ me first! Me first! “.