I hope I'm putting this in the right place. I love Whole Foods! They sell everything. It's like a regular supermarket except the food you get there is actually good for you (and they taste good too). And it's not like a health food store in that there is a lot more stuff! The fruits and veggies are beautiful and fresh, and taste like a dream! It's hard to find anything like that in a regular supermarket, at least where I'm from. You can get anything there, from milk without hormones (but pasteurized), to wine and beer, to lean meats and cereal and peanut butter. They also have vitamins and herbal supplements, cosmetics, dry goods, coffee, bread, seafood, plus a buffet. The prices aren't bad either. Some of the stuff is a little more, and other stuff, like the milk is like a dollar and a half less than what we pay at our supermarket. It's worth paying a little more for quality products. The service is great too, and all the workers look happy. (They don't have any dress codes, so I see lots of hippie-looking people working there, some with dreads and nose rings and tattoos!!!) They support protecting the environment, even down to the fact that some of their construction is from recycled materials (instead of putting them in a landfill). Who else has discovered this little jewel?
Good food selection but way to expensive and yeah i'm not a big fan of big corporations. Damn I miss Wild Oats
The Wild Oats here basically was pushed out of town by WholeFoods. At least we still got a Vitamin Cottage.
WholePayCheck is more like it! Trader Joes is a lot more reasonable on price. Still a corporation (it's privately held, which is a bonus) but at least they keep the prices low and the products legit.
Whole Foods is good because they have everything and tons of vegetarian stuff but Trader Joe's is way better in price and the food there is amazing... you should definitely go there. And from my experience Trader Joes does not have a dress code at all hah, I see hippies with beards and long greasy hair there, that would not cut it at the whole foods near me! I used to work at Whole Foods and they didn't treat me well, they treated me like I was in middle school and there was a dress code (I have a lip ring and wasn't allowed to wear it but nose and eyebrow rings are okay). Not all Whole Foods are like that, and I'm sure the original one is much more lenient and cool and nice. But it is a good job with good benefits and the people that work there are usually happy. So yeah if you dig that kinda thing you should check out Trader Joes... They don't have everything you could possibly need but their food is seriously like the best I ever had and the prices are soo good too!
Whole foods are the Wal-Mart of heath food stores, just another corporate entity with a good marketing.
I wouldn't compare them to walmart. I don't think they employ asian children in sweatshops to crank out their merchandise, and they are eco-friendly. The stores are big, but not actually as big as walmart. The one in my area isn't usually crowded like walmart is.
WHole foods bought Wild Oats, there is still a Wild Oats and no WHole Foods in Reno though..... Still prefer Trader Joes.
I’m sure the rice and soy beans they sell come from Asian markets which have tons of children working in the hot sun all day to harvest them and grow them for poverty borderline starvation wages. They also need to be grown in clear-cut forest so they had to kill all the trees and animals to start up the rice patties. If you look around past their marketing labels you will see all the plastic packaging and the containers that were produced in a factory run by coal electricity. A lot of it is recycled material but so is the packaging at Wal-mart they just don’t advertise it. Also all that rice beans fruits and vegetables have to be imported and shipped many miles so they burn outrageous amounts of gas to stock their stores. And then all the packages claim we donate 1% to the rainforest or renewable energy or what ever sounds cool (nice tax write off). I don’t really have anything against them just I think their marketing claims and images are false. Sometimes I stop in Whole foods and buy a “natural” soda that is made of chemical dye and corn syrup (I can’t afford the $5.00 for carrot juice) and sit on the patio and watch the yuppies in SUVs and Subarus pull up and go in with their ultra cool reusable grocery bags and I think wow what a way to live in balance with nature. .
True about the soy and beans. But seriously, where else would they get them? And yes, gas, but how else would they transport the goods? I'm sure you drive a gas-powered vehicle too. If there were more farms in america I'm sure they would get their produce from here. But no one wants to farm anymore. (Well, I'd like to) You could be right that their marketing claims might be false. But it is a damn good store - a step up from walmart and winn dixie and such as far as quality goes.
Actually Trader Joes doesn't import any goods from China anymore due to all the contamination scares and questionable working conditions. They also purchase everything direct from the manufacturer and pass the savings onto the consumer.
I agree no where else to really get commercial goods reasonably like that, it just kind of bother me when they pretend to be so pure and eco friendly and act like all of their products are so helpful to the world. Just seems like a false advertising. The things I eat are not that good for the planet but I don’t try to act like I they are. I eat meat but I buy it from a local rancher it is packaged in butcher paper and they are not raised in a slash clearing in virgin forest like a lot of the propaganda claims. I stopped driving in 2004 after the Iraq war I don’t believe in the war so I try not to support it but I still buy thing that are imported and ride the bus sometimes but by not owning a car I can use less gas. I probably is a good store but it is soo expensive! I just can’t afford to shop there. Everything is double the price of other places it does seem to support a lot more small companies then Wal-mart but I just can’t afford to pay double or triple to support some yuppie entrepreneurs who are using a green marketing campaign. I do stop in there once in a while and have a coffee, soda or a carrot juice if my vitamins are feeling low. I guess it is a nicer atmosphere then Wal-mart I wouldn't go to Wal-mart for a cup of coffee. But yeah I agree it is a step up from Wal-mart but it is out of my price league I am a hippy and if I spend more that means I have to work more so I spend less and work less. .
In the winter I shop at Outpost (the closest Trader Joe's is all the way on the other side of my fairly large city). In the summer I get most, if not all, of my produce at the local farmer's market. Mmmmm the apples I get there are DIVINE. Not to mention the cider. And all the veggies are just...delicious. Plus, buying from farmer's markets supports local farmers.
Yeah I'm fortunate to live near a couple different farmers markets and local farms so summer time is always good :-D
Thats odd, I go there specifically because many things are cheaper. The things I buy there aren't crap that is usually cheap at regular stores (ramen, soda, etc). Nuts, granola, almond milk, soap, beans, soup, etc. are all cheaper for me at Whole foods. Almond or rice milk especially, which is sometimes a dollar more at other stores.
wholefoods needs to be seeded by the unions. I had a friend that worked there and experienced a lot of b.s. and verbal/emotional abuse. I find that w.foods ( and most of the healthfood stores) are over packaged. when I was a kid, I remember health foods stores as more bare bones. Just bins of bulk, freezer for the dairy, paper bags. Not so much friggin plastic. yeah it may be cool to eat an organic tropical fruit, or some imported veggie from new zealand or chili, but it's shipped on the back of fossil fueled vehicles. w. foods renewable energy rap, is virtuous, doesn't go beyond the superficial. I call it green washing, comparable to carbon credit. also they have this ridiculous compassionate meat campaign. ew! Wild Oats was bought out by w.foods. Buying coops. Get a group of folks together and buy directly from the distributers. I can understand the flash and sparkle of w.foods. It feeds the epicurious foody soul. But also consider that when you buy the store brand, you are also contributing to big brand labels, and pushing out the smaller businesses. It is comparable to walmart, if you look at their business model and their employment practices. Here on the Big Island, we have fruit stands where you just put your money in the honor box, and there are farmers markets every where. And even avocados falling on the ground. Wash off and yum! And the health food stores are small. And everything isn't about instant gratification, if it's not grown here, then I know that I'm being dependent on the barge. So I am trying to be more local. The cost of imported food is comparable to Denver, as it seems everything is shipped into Denver as well. I had a booger of a time trying to buy local there, everything was such a huge drive. It was difficult to get connected to a coop, not like in my home town, where we had the longest running food coop in colorado, that one time rainbow foods came down and visited us.
