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Review of Whole Foods


jsharr

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7 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Lets not even touch the spandex & hemp/flaxseed textiles fashion show that is whole foods (please - earthtones only), nor the unspoken rule that you must acknowledge the righteous consciousness of every employee for working there, who doesnt know where anything is when you ask (well maybe the ice cream) sporting their tatoos (subtle, appropriate, & the perfect compliment to the piercings ) & their man bun (apologies to any who take offense - I acknowledge the sexism in that statement) - their gender untethered bun. Oh! care to donate to the flax seed coalition to help fight against the commercial exploitation of livestock methane? You'll earn free starbuck's miles & get an invitation to our new influencer platform app - meonme.org (not for profit). At least every item is overpriced.

I used to like Whole Foods, but locally three things have happened that have kept me away for years:

1) a lot of the "green" products they sell, like King Arthur Bread Flour, are now available at the regular supermarkets for half the price.

2) being a certified master chemist, I have no trouble looking at ingredients and determining how "organic" the product is. I found at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc. the bigger the package letters stating "Packaged in Recycled Materials," the less true are any claims about the product inside the package being green - but the prices are jacked-up as if it is.

3) The only one near me is west of Annapolis, about a 20-25 min. drive from my home, and it moved out of a huge strip shopping center to a nearby tower building where you have to park inside a jammed tower parking lot that's a pain to get in an out and to find a spot close to the store.

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If there's a Whole Foods in the city where I live, I don't know where it is which means it's way too far for  me to get to it if it's not easy cycling distance.  I think there's one in Vancouver, but we never had time investigate it vs. going to the local farmers' markets.

We don't have a Trader Joe's equivalent in Canada.  There are some local chain "organic" or "healthier" food chains.  I don't really pay attention to all the specialty goods...just a fresh veggie, fruit, dairy and tea buyer.

Grocery store habits are:  Safeway, Co-op a provincial based grocery chain that does buy bulk local produce from farmers, a farmers' market for spring-fall, and occasional ethnic supermarkets.. the pricing at latter is at times more competitive with far greater range of choices for noodles (fresh & dried Asian) than at a non-ethnic supermarket. 

Is it organic?  Alot of times probably not, I just incredibly limit myself, that I don't buy a wide range of prepared sauces/pastes that might have more preservatives.  No, I don't buy instant noodles...that stuff is evil unhealthy if eaten too often.

My heart is for:  Chinese-Canadian local fresh noodle producers. Just read the label, for the local address on the pkg.  Not for China nor Japan. (Good god, don't ever buy fresh soba noodles made in Japan!)  I bike by a Chinese fresh noodle manufacturer.  Or a major tofu producer in Vancouver..for the last 70 yrs.

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I have yet to set foot in a Whole Foods. We tried to go to the one in Omaha once. There was nothing that resembled one where Google Maps took us. They handed out fruit breakfast bars at a race once. They were really good! I would like to see how overpriced they are. 
We go to Trader Joe’s when we are in Lincoln. For a while we had a Fresh Thyme which is a TJ imitator. It was popular, but the home office decided to close all stores in cities our size and smaller. Before they closed, our local HyVee added many of their specialty items so we came out of it not so bad. 

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3 hours ago, MickinMD said:

I used to like Whole Foods, but locally three things have happened that have kept me away for years:

1) a lot of the "green" products they sell, like King Arthur Bread Flour, are now available at the regular supermarkets for half the price.

2) being a certified master chemist, I have no trouble looking at ingredients and determining how "organic" the product is. I found at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc. the bigger the package letters stating "Packaged in Recycled Materials," the less true are any claims about the product inside the package being green - but the prices are jacked-up as if it is.

3) The only one near me is west of Annapolis, about a 20-25 min. drive from my home, and it moved out of a huge strip shopping center to a nearby tower building where you have to park inside a jammed tower parking lot that's a pain to get in an out and to find a spot close to the store.

We don't go there mainly for your reason #1.  They are grossly overpriced.  They do have a nice selection of some alternative products -- but we can't get over my first sentence.

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I would have to go to the other side of town to Scottsdale (otherwise known as Snotsdale) to shop at Whole Foods. They don't consider the west side of the valley worthy of their presence. Fun fact -- there are actually more millionaires per capita over here than in Scottsdale. They have a ton of up-to-their-asses-in-hock posers over there driving fancy leased cars because they can't afford to buy them. 

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Whole Foods used to be a great company! Oh about the time Amazon bought them they started to go back on everything they stood for. People say it was the buyout that caused it, but that is not true. Amazon waw under contract where they could not change anything in the store for one year after purchase. 

Corporate started making all these corrections to the way the store ran (no more electronic price tags.. now there are paper tags in the store, they got rid of a lot of divisions and rolled them into one. No more Graphic artists, no more specialists for certain products like dietary, marketing, guest service, and so on)

They say they stand by their "core values" but go into any WF and ask about their "recycling program"... they might still have a dumpster out back for farm waste (feeding pigs) but they have not recycled products for years (2016 they got rid of the recycling dumpsters)... I see so much waste just being tossed in the same compactor. All signage, tags, product, batteries, useless employees, cardboard, and so on... 
Don't get me wrong.. we have a cardboard bailer, but only cardboard that have no waxes on it can be put in it. 

Since the C-19 hit, WF became a shitshow! The employees that have been there for about 4+ years are cool, but the new and improved woke crew need tested over a balcony or pushed down the stairs like a slinky. The him/he/her/it/them/they name tags freaking drive me crazy.. 

Not to mention about the newly enforced dress code bullshit they got going on... holy hell I cant wait to see if I can quit working there by the end of the year. 

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18 hours ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

We have a Fresh Market, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Giant Eagle Market District store within 1/2 mile of our home. Fresh Market has the best meat. Giant Eagle has better prices for cheese, and most household staples. We don’t do WF or TJ much.

Yeah, at home, we have ready access to many grocery stores, but even with a dozen options, we still hit up WF for some stuff that TJs or Harris Teeter (our got bigger grocery) don't have or which WF does better.

Competition either forces our local spots to step up their game or fade away.  With Wegmans stepping in to our local market, it is interesting (unsurprising?) to see that we have not gotten a Aldi or Lidl in our local area versus how many of those have cropped up a little farther away where the stores are farther apart.

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7 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

Moot issue for us, the closest one is half an hour away.  Too spensive, but they do have a good food buffet, or at least they used to.

They should be opening it back up one 5/17… we’ll all in the South west region is. 

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I think WF is far better now than they were before Amazon.  Prices have dropped for many items, and many others are competitive, at least in NYC.  Meat is still ridiculously priced, but it is the third least expensive food in the city behind Target and Trader Joe's.  Unless you are really looking for the hoity-toity in particular, WF is not ridiculous here.  The other grocery chains will charge a dollar or two more than WF for almost every item, it is pretty weird.

The shopping experience at WF now sucks horribly, ever since the pandemic and bringing in the hyper-aggressive shoppers putting together online orders.  They zoom around and pay no attention to other shoppers are are rude as fuck.  I got belligerent with a couple of them for their rude behavior.  Now I live further away, so I do the online thing, which seems to be the future of shopping.  

 

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4 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

I think WF is far better now than they were before Amazon.  Prices have dropped for many items, and many others are competitive, at least in NYC.  Meat is still ridiculously priced, but it is the third least expensive food in the city behind Target and Trader Joe's.  Unless you are really looking for the hoity-toity in particular, WF is not ridiculous here.  The other grocery chains will charge a dollar or two more than WF for almost every item, it is pretty weird.

The shopping experience at WF now sucks horribly, ever since the pandemic and bringing in the hyper-aggressive shoppers putting together online orders.  They zoom around and pay no attention to other shoppers are are rude as fuck.  I got belligerent with a couple of them for their rude behavior.  Now I live further away, so I do the online thing, which seems to be the future of shopping.  

 

Are you talking about the WFMoA.. bacicaly they are hired by Amazon to do the online order shopping. They somehow have no affiliation with the employees of Whole Foods. 
they do not really go through the horsing process for WF, but are hired from just an application online, and are told when to start.. 

it was the stupidest decision Amazon came up with! 

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Just now, jsharr said:

BTW, I really do want to try those dark chocolate peanut butter cups after reading that review.

The Justin DK cups are amazing.. we also have a Back to Nature cookie that is thin mint. I think they are a tad better then the Girl Scout cookies 

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1 minute ago, jsharr said:

I thought maybe you identified as having a gender untethered bun.  Had to ask.  

I’m as male dominant as they come at our store.. I identify as an asshat

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