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Organic, sustainable produce is inherently more expensive than mass-market, factory farm-grown produce. Complaining that Whole Foods is expensive is like gettin

Organic, sustainable produce is inherently more expensive than mass-market, factory farm-grown produce. Complaining that Whole Foods is expensive is like getting into your Tesla Roadaster and complaining about the price of electricity.

yesimahuman 17y ago
Well the argument I've always heard is that instead of increasing adoption of organic produce by the general public and lowering prices, Whole Foods creates an atmosphere of luxury where these prices are not necessarily validated by the real cost of producing them. Also, Whole Foods wants organics to stay expensive for their own benefit, whereas we would all benefit from larger adoption and cheaper organic produce.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  But they at least Whole Foods offers organic foods. The other major Austin area food store, HEB, doesn't really offer true organic produce, or at best it offers a limited selection. Larger adoption is a fine goal, but it isn't going to be either helped or stunted by a grocery store. To get more organic food in every store you have to get more organic food growers.
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    I think the real solution is to get more of the populace to buy organic food. If the demand is there, the production will quickly follow, especially with mass market consumption.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Why should they? I mean, they're a business, not a charity, and they operate on razor slim margins. Like most other large grocers, their net income is under 2%.
  - yesimahuman 17y ago
    Hence the "evil" designation in many people's eyes.
    - replicatorblog 17y ago
      Which is just a reflection of knee-jerk thinking. This "Evil" corporation pays better than companies that require similar levels of education/commitment and also offers employees health insurance. However, these benefits are better than those offered by unionized companies and this is a threat to those unions. So you get a smear campaign even though HF nets out as a far better corporate citizen. A lot of my liberal friends were among those angered by the WSJ editorial. Strangely none of them wanted to peer deeper into how this company with a low/no-skill workforce was able to offer insurance benefits. This company should be studied and held up as an example, not pulled into the borg.
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    Thinking through this more (there's now a raging debate going on about this is now going on in my home office) my best guess is that Whole Foods has this "evil" image because of their union-busting history. I think the first time I heard someone say that Whole Foods is evil was during a union-busting scandal at a midwestern WF store when I first moved to SF in 2000. It was humorous as I had 2 musician roommates who worked at Whole Foods and it was the best paying, most reliable job they were able to get in San Francisco for their skill-levels/desires.. Us left-coast liberals tend to get up in arms about unions, even though none of us are in them, affected by them, or really touched by them anymore. I would rather buy my groceries from a health-oriented libertarian than from Safeway or Albertsons, which both carry far inferior produce and have religious roots that offend the athiest in me.
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    Have you got reference for the %2 in the Whole Foods Case? I remember natural food stores doing much better than conventional grocery stores a few years ago.
    - 17y ago
- zck 17y ago
  Whole Foods hasn't been making great profits lately. So they're not keeping organics expensive by high markup. Perhaps they're encouraging farmers to charge them more, but that seems unlikely. It could just be that the produce they buy are higher-quality, higher-priced ones, in addition to being organic (or, as the article points out, "organic" but not in spirit).
- replicatorblog 17y ago
  you can also gauge the Whole Foods mark up by comparing it to the organic offerings at a "Normal" grocery store. In my comparisons of organic produce, the prices are fairly consistent which leads me to believe it is just more expensive to cultivate organic crops and the price is increased to account for the difficulty.
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    Whole Foods actually has fairly cheap organic produce. As you say, organic is more expensive though.
amalcon 17y ago
Compare Trader Joe's. They have a large selection of organic foods, at noticeably discounted prices compared to Whole Foods. The drawback is that they're a bit smaller than Whole Foods, so you might not necessarily have one near you.

yesimahuman 17y ago

Well the argument I've always heard is that instead of increasing adoption of organic produce by the general public and lowering prices, Whole Foods creates an atmosphere of luxury where these prices are not necessarily validated by the real cost of producing them. Also, Whole Foods wants organics to stay expensive for their own benefit, whereas we would all benefit from larger adoption and cheaper organic produce.

NathanKP 17y ago
But they at least Whole Foods offers organic foods. The other major Austin area food store, HEB, doesn't really offer true organic produce, or at best it offers a limited selection. Larger adoption is a fine goal, but it isn't going to be either helped or stunted by a grocery store. To get more organic food in every store you have to get more organic food growers.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  I think the real solution is to get more of the populace to buy organic food. If the demand is there, the production will quickly follow, especially with mass market consumption.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
dnsworks 17y ago
Why should they? I mean, they're a business, not a charity, and they operate on razor slim margins. Like most other large grocers, their net income is under 2%.
- yesimahuman 17y ago
  Hence the "evil" designation in many people's eyes.
  - replicatorblog 17y ago
    Which is just a reflection of knee-jerk thinking. This "Evil" corporation pays better than companies that require similar levels of education/commitment and also offers employees health insurance. However, these benefits are better than those offered by unionized companies and this is a threat to those unions. So you get a smear campaign even though HF nets out as a far better corporate citizen. A lot of my liberal friends were among those angered by the WSJ editorial. Strangely none of them wanted to peer deeper into how this company with a low/no-skill workforce was able to offer insurance benefits. This company should be studied and held up as an example, not pulled into the borg.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Thinking through this more (there's now a raging debate going on about this is now going on in my home office) my best guess is that Whole Foods has this "evil" image because of their union-busting history. I think the first time I heard someone say that Whole Foods is evil was during a union-busting scandal at a midwestern WF store when I first moved to SF in 2000. It was humorous as I had 2 musician roommates who worked at Whole Foods and it was the best paying, most reliable job they were able to get in San Francisco for their skill-levels/desires.. Us left-coast liberals tend to get up in arms about unions, even though none of us are in them, affected by them, or really touched by them anymore. I would rather buy my groceries from a health-oriented libertarian than from Safeway or Albertsons, which both carry far inferior produce and have religious roots that offend the athiest in me.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  Have you got reference for the %2 in the Whole Foods Case? I remember natural food stores doing much better than conventional grocery stores a few years ago.
  - 17y ago
zck 17y ago
Whole Foods hasn't been making great profits lately. So they're not keeping organics expensive by high markup. Perhaps they're encouraging farmers to charge them more, but that seems unlikely. It could just be that the produce they buy are higher-quality, higher-priced ones, in addition to being organic (or, as the article points out, "organic" but not in spirit).
replicatorblog 17y ago
you can also gauge the Whole Foods mark up by comparing it to the organic offerings at a "Normal" grocery store. In my comparisons of organic produce, the prices are fairly consistent which leads me to believe it is just more expensive to cultivate organic crops and the price is increased to account for the difficulty.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  Whole Foods actually has fairly cheap organic produce. As you say, organic is more expensive though.

amalcon 17y ago

Compare Trader Joe's. They have a large selection of organic foods, at noticeably discounted prices compared to Whole Foods. The drawback is that they're a bit smaller than Whole Foods, so you might not necessarily have one near you.