3 ms·

My perspective is maybe a little different from the rest of the country's. In NYC all of the stores are really expensive and quality control is pretty bad. Prod

My perspective is maybe a little different from the rest of the country's. In NYC all of the stores are really expensive and quality control is pretty bad. Produce and product choices are limited and quality is absolutely terrible. Whole Foods is actually one of the less expensive grocery stores. The quality is easily the best in the neighborhood. The employees are noticeably nicer, and I can pay with my phone. They do have some local suppliers, which Gristedies doesn't. Lastly, and probably least important to everyone but it's a pet-peeve of mine, the ice cream hasn't thawed and frozen in to a brick (a common side-effect of living on an island, frozen things get melted).

untilHellbanned 10y ago
Ye ole anecdote to the rescue. Ignoring the point of the article.
galdosdi 10y ago
Gristedes is a joke. Not sure why that's your go-to comparison. Have you tried some more affordable "normal" supermarkets like Key Foods, C Town, Western Beef, etc? You might still complain about quality (don't know your standards), but you won't be complaining about price at least any more. Trader Joe's is also fantastic (good quality, good deals on anything-but-produce, get that from C Town instead), if you can bear the lines (the wait time is not as bad as it looks) or just come in at an off-peak time.
- guiseroom 10y ago
  Trader Joe's has terrible produce and meat with a short shelf life. Too many times I've bought rice and boxed pasta that contain dead bugs that float to the top when boiling.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    As long as we're sharing anecdata, in my experience TJs has decent quality control... but it depends a bit store to store.
  - Xunxi 10y ago
    The bugs are an indication of poor storage the rudimentary milling and processing. Most likely a one or two step processing before it hit the shelves. Multi-stage milling usually get rid of that. If you're shopping organic you should be happy about the bugs, unfortunately.
  - jjawssd 10y ago
    You'll be fine. Chinese citizens eat all sorts of insects.
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    I don't buy produce and meat from TJs, because local supermarkets have better deals. I just buy dry/frozen goods from TJs, and have yet to experience what you did, shrug.
- anamoulous 10y ago
  > Have you tried some more affordable "normal" supermarkets like Key Foods I think this is what the parent is saying: that, for the price, these places have inconsistent quality and selection. This has been my experience as well. And if you live in the outer boroughs, depending on the neighborhood, these stores can be outright disgusting. But I'm also not originally from NYC and when I go back home to visit, I'm reminded how ubiquitous cheap and high quality grocery shopping is for pretty much the rest of the country. OP, if really high quality produce at a surprisingly reasonable price in Manhattan, you might be surprised at what Eataly has to offer. For me Fresh Direct and Food Kick are where I go for consistency.
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    I live in lower Manhattan, so I'm speaking from experience. I can even list specific store locations if requested... It's just not hard to find clean, fresh produce at a reasonable price here. But it's also not hard to find people who move here from a very different environment and it takes them a while to figure out where to get the stuff they want, because it's not organized quite the same as your average middle american suburb. That's OK, practice makes perfect
- Xunxi 10y ago
  New Yorker too, I have have lived in all the boroughs and have also shopped Key Foods, C Town, Western Beef, Food Bazaar etc, as well as Trader Joe and Whole Foods. I personally think it all boils down demography and subjective tastes. There's the millennial, "wannabe- australopithecine"/paleo crowd that tend to fancy WholeFoods and Trader Joes. Then there's frugal crowd, or the majority that prefer function over form and don't cheer-lead unsupervised organic labeling. There will always be someone ready to protect the rationale to pay a premium. The main problem is those who get roped into idolizing the hive-mind without noticing the sales pitch.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    I'm not in NYC (Phoenix here) so can't really comment on the local markets there. Here in Phoenix, there's a chain called Sprouts that has produce about as good as Whole Foods (or AJs) while being quite a bit less. As for meat there's Basha's (owns AJs) which is a bit less, similar quality. For everything else there's Fry's (Kroger) or Walmart. In the end, it depends on most of what I'm looking for as to what store I'll go to. In general it's only when I want more mushroom varieties fresh that I'll venture into an AJs or Whole Foods. I don't do the boxed "organic" anything, as it's usually just overpriced with dubious additional quality. I do wish more meat/egg sources labelled what feed they use as I find that influences flavor far more than organic v. not.
- mathattack 10y ago
  I used to live halfway between Western Beef and Whole Foods. Whole Foods was crazy expensive with great quality, and Western Beef had awful quality but great prices. (We used to joke "You can't leave Whole Foods without spending $100 no matter how little you try to buy. You can't leave Western Beef spending more than $40 no matter how hard you try." Now that I'm out West, I've seen the middle take over. Safeway has closed much of the quality gap, with much better prices. The top of the market can't grow forever. There's a reason they call it "Whole Paycheck." It's also an incomplete store. If I need to go to Safeway for shampoo anyways, I might as well buy my organic FancyPantsStuff there too if it's cheaper that Whole Foods.
  - fullsage 10y ago
    Safeway has changed a lot over the past five years. I used to be a kind of reluctant Whole Foods shopper, but have just recently been surprised by how comparable Safeway has become at a much more affordable price point. I think there are probably a lot of people like you and me who were never part of the whole foods cult but still appreciated the product, and are realizing that now we can get the same stuff for less elsewhere.
nathanvanfleet 10y ago
"a common side-effect of living on an island, frozen things get melted" What?
- ma2rten 10y ago
  I think he is saying that due to longer transport frozen things melt before they make it into the supermarket.
  - dlp211 10y ago
    But that's interesting because the only time that the product shouldn't be under temperature is during load and unload time which is totally unrelated to travel time or distance. Now the cost of the ice cream could be an issue since keeping it frozen during transportation is not free.
    - headShrinker 10y ago
      My only guess is that when the supply trucks switch their cargo to smaller city worthy delivery trucks the ice cream sits on the asphalt. Whole Foods has it's own semi loading dock, so they don't have to switch the cargo out.

untilHellbanned 10y ago

Ye ole anecdote to the rescue. Ignoring the point of the article.

galdosdi 10y ago

Gristedes is a joke. Not sure why that's your go-to comparison. Have you tried some more affordable "normal" supermarkets like Key Foods, C Town, Western Beef, etc? You might still complain about quality (don't know your standards), but you won't be complaining about price at least any more. Trader Joe's is also fantastic (good quality, good deals on anything-but-produce, get that from C Town instead), if you can bear the lines (the wait time is not as bad as it looks) or just come in at an off-peak time.

guiseroom 10y ago
Trader Joe's has terrible produce and meat with a short shelf life. Too many times I've bought rice and boxed pasta that contain dead bugs that float to the top when boiling.
- r00fus 10y ago
  As long as we're sharing anecdata, in my experience TJs has decent quality control... but it depends a bit store to store.
- Xunxi 10y ago
  The bugs are an indication of poor storage the rudimentary milling and processing. Most likely a one or two step processing before it hit the shelves. Multi-stage milling usually get rid of that. If you're shopping organic you should be happy about the bugs, unfortunately.
- jjawssd 10y ago
  You'll be fine. Chinese citizens eat all sorts of insects.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  I don't buy produce and meat from TJs, because local supermarkets have better deals. I just buy dry/frozen goods from TJs, and have yet to experience what you did, shrug.
anamoulous 10y ago
> Have you tried some more affordable "normal" supermarkets like Key Foods I think this is what the parent is saying: that, for the price, these places have inconsistent quality and selection. This has been my experience as well. And if you live in the outer boroughs, depending on the neighborhood, these stores can be outright disgusting. But I'm also not originally from NYC and when I go back home to visit, I'm reminded how ubiquitous cheap and high quality grocery shopping is for pretty much the rest of the country. OP, if really high quality produce at a surprisingly reasonable price in Manhattan, you might be surprised at what Eataly has to offer. For me Fresh Direct and Food Kick are where I go for consistency.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  I live in lower Manhattan, so I'm speaking from experience. I can even list specific store locations if requested... It's just not hard to find clean, fresh produce at a reasonable price here. But it's also not hard to find people who move here from a very different environment and it takes them a while to figure out where to get the stuff they want, because it's not organized quite the same as your average middle american suburb. That's OK, practice makes perfect
Xunxi 10y ago
New Yorker too, I have have lived in all the boroughs and have also shopped Key Foods, C Town, Western Beef, Food Bazaar etc, as well as Trader Joe and Whole Foods. I personally think it all boils down demography and subjective tastes. There's the millennial, "wannabe- australopithecine"/paleo crowd that tend to fancy WholeFoods and Trader Joes. Then there's frugal crowd, or the majority that prefer function over form and don't cheer-lead unsupervised organic labeling. There will always be someone ready to protect the rationale to pay a premium. The main problem is those who get roped into idolizing the hive-mind without noticing the sales pitch.
- tracker1 10y ago
  I'm not in NYC (Phoenix here) so can't really comment on the local markets there. Here in Phoenix, there's a chain called Sprouts that has produce about as good as Whole Foods (or AJs) while being quite a bit less. As for meat there's Basha's (owns AJs) which is a bit less, similar quality. For everything else there's Fry's (Kroger) or Walmart. In the end, it depends on most of what I'm looking for as to what store I'll go to. In general it's only when I want more mushroom varieties fresh that I'll venture into an AJs or Whole Foods. I don't do the boxed "organic" anything, as it's usually just overpriced with dubious additional quality. I do wish more meat/egg sources labelled what feed they use as I find that influences flavor far more than organic v. not.
mathattack 10y ago
I used to live halfway between Western Beef and Whole Foods. Whole Foods was crazy expensive with great quality, and Western Beef had awful quality but great prices. (We used to joke "You can't leave Whole Foods without spending $100 no matter how little you try to buy. You can't leave Western Beef spending more than $40 no matter how hard you try." Now that I'm out West, I've seen the middle take over. Safeway has closed much of the quality gap, with much better prices. The top of the market can't grow forever. There's a reason they call it "Whole Paycheck." It's also an incomplete store. If I need to go to Safeway for shampoo anyways, I might as well buy my organic FancyPantsStuff there too if it's cheaper that Whole Foods.
- fullsage 10y ago
  Safeway has changed a lot over the past five years. I used to be a kind of reluctant Whole Foods shopper, but have just recently been surprised by how comparable Safeway has become at a much more affordable price point. I think there are probably a lot of people like you and me who were never part of the whole foods cult but still appreciated the product, and are realizing that now we can get the same stuff for less elsewhere.

nathanvanfleet 10y ago

"a common side-effect of living on an island, frozen things get melted" What?

ma2rten 10y ago
I think he is saying that due to longer transport frozen things melt before they make it into the supermarket.
- dlp211 10y ago
  But that's interesting because the only time that the product shouldn't be under temperature is during load and unload time which is totally unrelated to travel time or distance. Now the cost of the ice cream could be an issue since keeping it frozen during transportation is not free.
  - headShrinker 10y ago
    My only guess is that when the supply trucks switch their cargo to smaller city worthy delivery trucks the ice cream sits on the asphalt. Whole Foods has it's own semi loading dock, so they don't have to switch the cargo out.