Casual Connoisseur
Whole Foods Versus the World
By Giulian Jones
I think Jack Tripper from Three's Company would be surprised to learn that the best place to meet single people is no longer the Regal Beagle, but Whole Foods. It turns out that the ultra modern and Eco-friendly grocery store has surpassed even the most hip of night scenes with the day scene you will find at your full service deli. No longer are the days of waiting in line for mass produced potato salad in plastic tubs, now you can have homemade, old fashioned, all American, organic, vegan potato salad served to you by a multiple pierced, 22 year old American Apparel model.
Do you remember when rock and roll Ralph's on Sunset was to place to spot drunken celebrities shopping for beer at 2 in the morning? You can stroll in anytime to Whole Foods and find Gwyneth Paltrow sipping java next to Mel Gibson. I'm not kidding, I've actually seen it. It's not the celeb-factor that is the best deal though; it's all the healthy food being served that keeps the well-informed public coming back in masses.
The 3rd and Fairfax store alone services 30,000 customers each week. They offer over 75 homemade or "scratch" items in their deli case before you even walk over to their all-natural pizza department. What most people don't realize is that Whole Foods are the world's largest retailer of natural and organic foods. That's good news for people who have been getting their daily intake of artificial flavors, colors, or steroid induced cattle.
Did you know that for years some conventional grocery stores have been genetically modifying their produce to make it more attractive? Did you know that some conventional grocery stores have been radiating their produce? The well-informed public no longer wants 2 pound artificially colored apples and foot long zucchini from Mexico when they can have heirloom tomatoes from Bakersfield and award winning wine from Solvang, California.
The conventional grocery stores can no longer compete and have actually started to change their look because of the changes Whole Foods have made to the industry. Whole Foods offers restaurant quality food coupled with high-end produce and a top shelf wine list that would have most sommeliers drooling.
I noticed house cured grav lox and Guinness braised lamb shanks at the Third and Fairfax location daily. Who offers this type of product? When was the last time you had homemade roasted garlic and ricotta cheese pizza or Italian paninis? I can hear my stomach screaming at me for feeding it bologna and American cheese sandwiches on Wonder bread from the conventional grocery store back on the East Coast.
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but we've been putting poison in our bodies for years and the grocery chains know it. The public demands to be told the truth and the large number of shoppers at Whole Foods almost 300 worldwide locations are getting their way. What had been an industry standard for cutting cost and inflating products is now shunned. Why ship green oranges from Florida simply to get a good price when you can drive down to Orange County and get them ripe off the tree?
What you will also find behind the uber cool counters at Whole Foods is information, these guys know their stuff. Just ask any collage graduate making you a sandwich about organic versus all natural or local produce as apposed to oranges flown in from Florida.
Whole Foods has grown so big and successful they even have a regional commissary stocked full of chefs for those stores to small or busy to make their own food. Whole Foods has their team members study before they even take to the floor on one of their company owned computers in a class called Whole Foods University. Whole Foods also calls their employees team members in an effort to help build a team mentality. They also get full benefits, stock options, and a sales based incentive called gain share whereby if a team sells more than they project the team shares in the profits. Pretty unique considering they started out as a roofed farmer's market for hippies.
Whole Foods are turning up all over the place, including London's Kensington Park directly across the way from Hyde Park and several stores in Hawaii. The only problem, I can see, is sometimes people get too big for their own britches. Let's hope the great idea doesn't become an afterthought. What started out locally has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry that offers high end products to the well-informed public.