Ah, Whole Foods
May 24th, 2008 — -A couple years ago, in the San Francisco branch of Whole Foods Market, off of steep and divisionary slope of Van Ness Blvd, I picked up a flat package containing a fistful of cold, cooked white rice, and a few pieces of bloody tuna thrown this way and that. I brought it to the help desk, and asked, “What is this?”
They looked at me with more than puzzlement. “Sushi.”
“Yeah,” I said. “No. This.” I pointed to the price - $13.99, for a palm-sized, inch-high designer-plastic shingle of cold, syphilitic leftover tidal scraping (alright, it wasn’t syphilitic, it was just cold and intensely unappetizing to yours truly), but a volume of food that wouldn’t have stopped a starving man from throwing himself into the lion’s den in the Roman Colosseum, in hopes of maybe getting a real bite of cat flesh, while being ripped to pieces…
“I’m saving money to go to Whole Foods Market!”
I asked them if they thought a working-class family could feed itself on what was offered at their store. “We have many budget-priced selections,” I was told by one of the quintuply-tattooed and pierced anorexic heroin-addict working there. (Alright, maybe he wasn’t anorexic).
“Yes,” I said. “I’m familiar with everything in your store that doesn’t cost $22.00 a pound.” And I walked away, because Whole Foods used to be a market for people who cared a little (and not a lot), about their health, and the health of their local and national environment.
But no more.
For years, I shopped at Whole Foods Market, buying a few staples from their bulk section, and from their ‘budget’ “365″ label. But my buying ability has been chipped away, year by year, by a ceaseless tidal flood of price increases, that knows neither shame nor pity…
- “Budget? I don’t see no stinking Budget!”
Even while WFM ventured and won a (pointless) hostile takeover of their single competitor, Wild Oats. Even while they’ve expanded and expanded. Even while their stock rose and rose (and now falls and falls)…
…until I found that the only thing I could afford at WFM were three items in the bulk aisle: Oats, Rice and Split Peas.
But the tide has not turned, and the prices go up and up, like a cruel mistress with a desperate sugar daddy.
And I defended ex-Ceo John Mackey’s fanoodling with the boards at Yahoo finance over the Wild Oats buyout. “He’s a brazen capitalist,” I said. “He’s a streetfighter in his realm, I am in mine, so much the better.”
Wrong. So much the worse, so much the less competitive, so much the more ruthlessly over-priced, over-milled, and over-produced; shelves full of nothing but torpid garbage for the (remaining) nouveaux-riche, and their taste for the useless, inedible, overpriced bulemia-gourmande that used to be reserved for specialty stores in Chestnut Hill to La Jolla that reeked of duck bladder and ancient cheese whose putreificence would blind you from thirty paces.
Now I can afford, on a regular basis, exactly one thing at WFM: Tofu - $1.19 a package, (which is up from $0.99, last year), and my business goes to the local Stop and Shop. Organics be damned.
And when Alfred E. Newman has your number, you know your number’s up…
So, I’m starting a list, to be updated, of recent price increases in my area. You are invited to add your own…
- Bulk Rolled Oats - overnight from $0.79 to $1.39.
Ten years ago, oats were $0.39 a pound in bulk, and remained at 0.49 for about 8 years.
They’re still $0.59 a pound at my local market. Eft Ewe, Whole Foods.
-Eft-Ewe (or, “Eff-You”, colloquially)
- Corn tortillas - $1.49 for 10, up from $0.79.
- Soy yogurt (large container): $2.69 up from $1.99, overnight.
- (small containers) - $0.99 and $1.09 for four to six ounces, up from $0.79.
- Hot Soup, pints and quarts, up from $2.00 and $4.00, to $4.00 and $7.00 dollars.
- Salad Bar - $7.99 per pound, up from $4.99, $5.99 and $6.99 in the last 4 years.
- Soy/Rice Milk - $1.49 per quart, up from $1.19, overnight.
And I’m just getting started. I’ll keep this list growing, updated and corrected.
So, What’s gone up in your Whole Paycheck Market?
May 25th, 2008 at 5:37 am
I haven’t been following price changes, but, something I noticed recently that has me wondering…
in the meat section, there was no organic or grass-fed beef option.
They just labeled the gronnd beef as “our beef”.
Seemed strange and meaningless to me. Where did this meat come from? If it was organic or grass-fed, wouldn’t they want to let the consumer know?
My assumption at this point is that it’s the same beef you could get at any supermarket.
But calling it “our beef” is somehow supposed to make you think it might be healthier or different than the stuff you could buy at Safeway?
Also, noticing that their 5# bags of whole wheat flour were cheaper than the other brands, I bought one. It had plenty of chaff in it.
I have a feeling that Whole Foods is feeling some pain these days with the economy being what it is, and perhaps their snob appeal is losing its appeal?
June 9th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
As I was browsing Whole Foods today, I realized that prices are increasing so quickly there that many of the branded products in the brad aisle don’t even have prices on the units or the shelves. The new line of soups - labeled ‘value’ - actually eliminate the old $3.99 choice and offer a slightly larger version for the price of the old, larger size. Some value. Some of the prepared foods are up 50% in only a couple of years. Whole paycheck indeed!
June 9th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I was biking back from cross town yesterday and stopped in the big, local WFM, mostly to get out of the heat for a few minutes. I walked aisle to aisle to aisle, and realized that there was nothing I couldn’t find cheaper somewhere else - even locally. And I mean nothing at all. The same brands are available elsewhere, cheaper.
The exceptions are listed in the blog - some of the larger volume soymilk containers are still competitive, as is their tofu.
But everything else is 30 to 100 percent higher than EVERY market in my large corner of Boston.
And don’t even bother walking through the produce section. It’s gorgeous, and huge, and smells good - and fruit is 3 to 5 dollars, per pound. Fruit. 3.49 a pound. 4.49 a pound. 4.99 a pound! For melons!
Good grief and holy crap. Somebody fire somebody, fast, because that place is really starting to get a permanent stink to it.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Just out of curiousity… have any of you checked the prices at any other grocery store? You’d probably notice that they wen’t up too… food is just more expensive these days, especially with the gas prices pushing up the cost of shipping that food to the store!
June 18th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Hi Shanna,
Yes I have. I even mention some comparative costs in the blog. I’m sure you’re right, but here’s an item at Stop and Shop locally.
One loaf (or brick, really) of German rye bread, same brand, same item:
Stop and Shop VS Whole Foods
$2.49 ||| $4.39
Same item. The stores are within a couple miles of each other. Shipping costs?
I’ll bring a pad a and pen to the market today and return with more…
ITEMS OF INTEREST!!
June 19th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Well. Honestly. I only eat half foods anyway.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I noticed the same thing the last time I went to Whole Foods (Oakland location near Grand Ave). I’m a neurotic numbers guy, and I almost everything that I normally buy from the bulk section was significantly more expensive, 60-80% in a sweeping overnight change. It would not take someone particularly price conscious to notice that a whole bunch of ingredients that were less than $1/lb were now more than $1/lb. Not slick at all.
It may be time for my long-term relationship with Whole Foods to come to a messy end.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
In New Jersey last week, a one-pound bag of Goya dry Red Beans -
How much?
I’m talking about your standard Chili Bean, Kidney Bean, Red Bean.
Four dollars for a One Pound Bag.
Not a five-pound bag.
A ONE Pound Bag.
No, I’m not kidding. Wish I’d taken a picture.