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Why Whole Foods Is Moving in to One of the Poorest Neighborhoods in Chicago

117 points by adam 12y ago

rmason 12y ago
Whole Foods also opened the first full supermarket in downtown Detroit. Imagine a city of 700,000 people without a single supermarket. Course they received millions in subsidies to do it. But the program was out there for awhile and no other supermarket chain would take the chance. Whole Foods success was followed by other chains. However the other chains took the subsidies and built their supermarkets out on 8 mile which is the dividing line between Detroit and the suburbs. While the stores are technically within Detroit the suburbs are right across the street so their risk was much lower.
- ironchef 12y ago
  There are actually quite a few other supermarkets in the area (like E and L). It's the chains that are / were largely scared (outside of like Spartan)
- bluedino 12y ago
  >> Whole Foods also opened the first full supermarket in downtown Detroit. Imagine a city of 700,000 people without a single supermarket. Don't spread this lie. I know food deserts are a popular myth but there are plenty of grocery stores in the city of Detroit. Sure, they might not have a Kroger or Meijer but there are plenty of smaller grocery stores like Save A Lot and ethnic markets. People don't really think everyone in Detroit lives on a diet of snack foods, $1 menu burgers, and fruit flavored soft drinks, do they?
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    > People don't really think everyone in Detroit lives on a diet of snack foods, $1 menu burgers, and fruit flavored soft drinks, do they? Some people apparently think all Americans live that way. Never underestimate the power of preconceptions and stereotypes, especially when they're Not Racist.
  - cynicalkane 12y ago
    "Supermarket" refers to a grocery store that is significantly larger than traditional neighborhood grocery stores.
  - arturnt 12y ago
    I shop organic, typically at farmer's markets, and actively cook. I lived in Toledo for a little while and visited Detroit. While you have access to supermarkets in that part of the country the access is very poor. I ate a lot of fast food simply because fast food is within 5 min and a super market is often times 30 min. Produce is typically poor quality and imported.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      https://www.google.com/maps/search/supermarket/@41.6476485,-83.5350869,13z https://www.google.com/maps/search/supermarket/@41.6476485,-... It doesn't look that bad. Did you somehow miss Kroger and Meijer are supermarkets?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - rmason 12y ago
    Most of the coders living downtown I know before Whole Foods all drove to the suburbs to shop. Those small stores offered little variety along with limited selections of fruits and vegetables.
  - omaranto 12y ago
    Nobody said Detroit was a food desert or that it had no grocery stores. The claim was that it had no supermarket. You said "don't spread this lie" but then gave no evidence it was a lie. Is it a lie (I wouldn't know)?
fiatmoney 12y ago
"Nor is it a bet, by Whole Foods, on neighborhood change." Although, if the neighborhood did happen to gentrify, as has been the goal of the Emanuel administration for Chicago as a whole, that would be a happy coincidence.
- johnloeber 12y ago
  Normally, gentrification is a slow creep that happens on a block-by-block basis. This does not apply to Englewood. The Whole Foods is being built essentially in the heart of urban poverty in Chicago.
- selectodude 12y ago
  Nobody is moving to Englewood because a Whole Foods opened up.
mynameishere 12y ago
They only mention SNAP in passing, but I guarantee it features large on the spreadsheets back at HQ. Everyone I've known who was on it seemed a little nostalgic about buying expensive food they wouldn't normally. (However, my sample size is two).
- buttcoinslol 12y ago
  This was my first instinct, Whole Foods wants to see if the SNAP money can subsidize a location in a low income area.
  - gumby 12y ago
    Which is not inherently a bad thing.
- GabrielF00 12y ago
  The average monthly SNAP benefit per person in Illinois is $138/month, or $4.60 a day. You're not going to be living large on it. [http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/18SNAPavg$PP.pdf http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/18SNAPavg$PP....]
  - Retric 12y ago
    If you spend 4.60 per day on unprocessed food and a little meat you can get high quality food. But you need to cook it. Or you can basically starve on chips and soda. Now if your unemployed / underemployed and have free time foor cooking it's not unreasonable to shop at whole foods. Assuming you don't need to watch kids / elderly / or the disabled. Though transportation is often a major issue keeping people shopping at the corner store.
  - buttcoinslol 12y ago
    There are 2,040,053 SNAP recipients in IL, at an average of $138 per month, total benefits equal $281,527,314. Per month. Even if only a quarter live in Chicago, that's still nearly $1 billion a year in SNAP benefits in Chicago alone.
rahij 12y ago
On the topic of Whole Foods: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8609515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8609515
raldi 12y ago
Can we get a "saved you a click" summary?
- RyJones 12y ago
  Ten million dollar subsidy by the city of Chicago, high SNAP redemption flow in Detroit store in similar situation.
michaelchisari 12y ago
With the shift in other supermarkets carrying more organic and "luxury" items like Jewel and Mariano's purchasing Dominick's locations and building stores that carry a wide range of organic to normal shelf items, Whole Foods isn't the high end gem it once was. You can now get the things you got there at regular stores (that have more acceptable pricing). My guess is this is putting pressure on Whole Foods' growth strategy.
- larrys 12y ago
  "My guess is this is putting pressure on Whole Foods' growth strategy." Agree. And it will be interesting to see the exact product mix of that store is vs. the one that is located where I am. My guess (in addition to what the article says) it will be quite different. At a local WF "clone" that I also frequent (just opened) last night I bought some raw pistachios. I didn't even look at the price. When I got to the register they were $13.50 for 8 ozs. (I'm sure WF has a similar product.) My point is that's easily an 1 hour's after tax wage or more in that area. (Maybe 2 hours..) Hard to believe the product mix is going to include items like that. Anyway growth wise WF could come up with a new brand (which is typically what would happen) but here they decide to use the same premium brand name because, and this is important and in addition to any PR benefit, the people who would shop at an upscale whole foods won't know what goes on at this Whole Foods (if it in fact would even matter to them). It could look like a warehouse and they'd never know that. Not the same as with a consumer product that makes it into the channel and could destroy your brand name.
larrys 12y ago
"an 18,000-square-foot Whole Foods." 18,000 is actually small for a supermarket and in fact the average Whole Foods is 38,000 square feet: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/whole_foods_market_inc/index.html http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/whole_...
rpenm 12y ago
I've lived in Englewood. I can confirm a lack of quality produce - I'd have to travel to Hyde Park, Chinatown or the South Loop for that. However, I doubt Whole Foods will draw too many neighborhood customers away from the Food-4-Less or Aldi. Price matters. The Englewood location is probably more about cheap land near the I-90/94, which links downtown Chicago to the South Side, and south suburbs. This location is also close to the Hyde Park (University of Chicago) and Woodlawn neighborhoods, which are more affluent.
- BostonEnginerd 12y ago
  Would you consider Aldi's to not be a real supermarket? We have one in my neighborhood in MA and you can find passably good produce there. It's certainly not as nice of an experience as the Whole Foods, but you still find organics there. Calling an area that has an Aldi a "food desert" doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
  - rpenm 12y ago
    The Aldi in Englewood isn't really a supermarket - it's more like a dollar-store version of Trader Joe's. They also don't sell much produce (maybe 10 feet of shelf space), and it's usually been sitting on the shelf a while. I think this is more about customer demand than availability. Chicago gets plenty of great produce through its wholesalers (and role as a freight hub) - high quality produce is abundant and cheap at the Latino markets.
    - kourt 12y ago
      dollar-store version of Trader Joe's The family resemblance is to be expected since the two brands are the result of feuding brothers splitting their family business: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/12/02/aldi_grocery_store_best_in_america_related_to_trader_joe_s.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/12/02/aldi_grocery_...
    - BostonEnginerd 12y ago
      Fair enough! The one over here has a pretty solid frozen vegetable section and reasonably good fresh produce ($0.99 unripe avocados!!!). I'd estimate that they have about 20ft of shelf space for fresh stuff.
et2o 12y ago
This is a really huge deal. Englewood is a hurting neighborhood and community. These food deserts are real. Children in these areas sometimes grow up eating out of vending machines because there aren't any alternatives. I'm not a romantic, but having had some firsthand experience, these situations are really tragic. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a package deal with the new Whole Foods opening in Hyde Park near the University of Chicago.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Food deserts are real, and caused by consumer choice. Giving people access to health food does not result in an increase in vegetable consumption or a reduction in BMI. http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/giving-people-access-to-healthier-food-isnt-enough/ http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/giving-people-ac... tl;dr; The issue is demand side, not supply side.
  - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
    So... i know someone. One day his kids were hungry and asked for something to eat. He gave them each a candy bar. He had access to FREE healthy food as he was staying with my parents at the time and he could eat anything there. He could have literally walked two rooms away to the kitchen and found something for them to eat. But i guess he thought a candy bar was just as good as any other food.
  - smtddr 12y ago
    Note the last part of his article: "Access may be necessary, but it’s not sufficient. Policies that are aimed at just eliminating food deserts may not work. More needs to be done." There are a lot of reasons poor people don't eat healthier; supply is definitely part of it. But not just supply of food, supply of time as well. A poor person is probably working some physically taxing job and is just too tired to cook a healthy meal. Or too tired to get to the market selling healthy food, or... a million other things. It's not just "demand", it's not that they just don't want to eat healthy. Some don't even know fast food is unhealthy. Don't forget, we have people on HN defending fastfood hamburgers..... so imagine the potential confusion about nutrition in a poor & less educated community.
marincounty 12y ago
Never thought I would stick up for Whole Foods, but their price on the basics(milk, butter, some bread, flour) is cheaper/same price than Safeway. Their bulk food section is overpriced. I'm not sure why they overprice the bulk foods; I think they figure we can't do the math? Examlpe: Lumberg rice is cheaper than WF bulk rice? If anyone from Whole Foods reads this, and I imagine everyone of these posts are going to be dissected my management--get rid of the Security Guards. If you are that conserved about theft, use undercover guards.
- btoptical 12y ago
  The Whole Foods in Almaden (affluent South San Jose) hires off-duty San Jose PD to provide security. The officers are in full uniform and carry their utility belt and service weapon.
- dcre 12y ago
  > Get rid of the security guards. I assure you, they will not. http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/community http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/community
deleted 12y ago
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Animats 12y ago
I could see putting in a Trader Joe's, but Whole Foods? Whole Foods is overpriced silliness. "Organic salt", stuff like that.
- jim_greco 12y ago
  Each area is different I guess. In NYC Whole Foods is among the cheapest of the supermarkets and one of the highest in quality. For example, Gristedes and Morton Williams cost more and their fruits/veges selection is poor.
  - maratd 12y ago
    I think you mean Manhattan, the other boroughs have a few more options like Waldbaums and Key Food, etc. Manhattan sucks for decent affordable groceries because there's a substantial culture of frequently eating out and those that eat in normally do so because they want the gourmet experience at home, so they're looking for high-end stuff. That and everything costs more in Manhattan. Go across the river to NJ and right away you'll see Wholefoods is obscenely expensive when compared to Trader Joe's, H Mart, Pathmark, Shop Rite, and local farmers markets.
    - zkhalique 12y ago
      Does Trader Joes cost less than Whole Foods in Manhattan?
      - matznerd 12y ago
        Yes it does.
      - rpedroso 12y ago
        Yes, but there are only 3 Trader Joe's in all of Manhattan. Two of them are down near NYU and the other is on the Upper West side, which makes them difficult to access for people living in midtown, uptown and virtually the entire east side. On the upper east side, where I live, the options are pretty much Gristedes, Morton Williams, Food Emporium and Fairway. Gristedes and Morton Williams are overpriced with a bad selection of produce. Food Emporium is worse. Fairway's prices are more reasonable and the produce selection is actually quite good, but I tend to think the quality of Whole Foods' produce is a bit better.
waynecochran 12y ago
Favorite quote: “No one steals vegetables.”
sremani 12y ago
I do not know about Chicago or Englewood, so I do not have much to comment on this particular stuff, but riding on the theme - I work across a Whole Foods and across the street are many low-income apartments, I did not find many people from those apartments shopping or working at whole foods. If their desire is to address food deserts this store has to be completely different from their standard configuration and unless that is not the case, this is either well-intentioned yet misguided effort or calculated low cost land acquisition.
keithpeter 12y ago
"The neighborhood was targeted by the city as a "food desert," although corner stores are common and discount-grocer Aldi's is just down the street." My corner shops and my local Aldi must be unusual. No problem sourcing fresh produce at reasonable prices (UK). I wonder if anyone is looking out for the corner shop people.
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  Isn't that what the 'although' in the sentence means? That the neighborhood was designated as a food desert, despite having stores that sell fresh produce?
  - keithpeter 12y ago
    OK, so 'food desert' means something different to what I thought it meant.
- deleted 12y ago
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fndrplayer13 12y ago
My wife and I are very much into knowing where our food came from, how it was raised/produced, etc. As you can imagine, we shop primarily at Whole Foods (outside of our CSA). We are also interested in making sure we buy these products at the best possible prices. So we routinely cross-shop at places like Marianos and even Jewel for these items. Interestingly, the cost of these types of items are almost always cheaper at Whole Foods than anywhere else. I think Marianos and Jewel mark these items up much higher because they take up precious shelf space and tend to move more slowly than the non-organic and/or mass-produced items. Just something to be aware of. If you're concerned about where your food came from, Whole Foods is actually not overpriced. If you look at how European families spend money on groceries proportional to their income, I think the Whole Foods model is more in line with that than the familiar American model. I'd have to Google the numbers, but I believe American families spend roughly 10% of their income on food, whereas Europeans will spend 15-20% of their income. With all that being said, surely this is a huge risk on Whole Food's part, and I'm not quite sure how it will turn out. I enjoy that there is probably some portion of idealism in this move and I hope it works for both WF and more importantly the residents.
- tptacek 12y ago
  It might not be obvious if you're a vegetarian (or just minimize meat consumption), but Whole Foods is not the most cost-effective way to get high-quality traceable meat. I routinely pay more per-pound for lower-quality protein at Whole Foods than I do at Butcher and Larder, a boutique whole-animal butcher.
  - fndrplayer13 12y ago
    Yeah +1 that makes a lot of sense. I eat meat 1-2x a month.
ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
I hope that (assuming the demographics really do skew poor and food stamps) that the cashiers aren't mandated to harass the cusomters with WFs bullshit charities. I used to work at the Palo Alto WF for 4 years, and a couple of times a year there were periods where it was mandatory for cashiers to ask customers about WFs latest bullshit charity schemes-like the Whole Planet Foundation, etc. It was bad enough doing that in rich PAMPA, but hopefully the store management has a bit more flexibility opening up in freaking Detroit (assuming its not a store heavily visited by 28 year old start up employees with obscene amounts of money).
tptacek 12y ago
Putting a Whole Foods in Englewood is fraught for the same reason it would be in Humboldt Park (well, minus the gentrification issue). Go to Jimenez or Del Rancho and check out the produce section: it's comparable in size to a Whole Foods, but stocked very differently. You can find a small tub of lemongrass or buddhas hand citrus at Whole Foods, along with a small tub of jalapenos and maybe a plaintain. You can't find buddhas hand at Jimenez at all, but fresh peppers are stacked floor to ceiling. Produce variety at Jimenez is poorer than Whole Foods. But quantity is much greater, and quality is higher. Jimenez does a better job at stocking the ingredients people in their neighborhood actually use. Similarly: you can get cheap-cheap-cheap top round or ground pork or skirt or chorizo at Del Rancho. You can't get hanger steak, air-chilled cage-free chicken, or 15 varieties of chicken-apple sausage. Having a serious grocery store in Englewood is an unalloyed good thing, no matter whether they choose to stock Organic Valley Sour Cream or Salvadoran crema (the crema is better, by the way). But if Whole Foods really wants to help the south side, they're going to have run a different kind of Whole Foods. It would be really neat to see them try.
gumby 12y ago
This is super exciting. I was disappointed by one pull quote: "This is not an experiment. African American people are not an experiment,” Thompson says. “People need to stop thinking like that, that we cannot afford the things that people in other communities have.” The fact is: this is a poor community, and the accepted wisdom is that they can't have nice things. This is indeed an experiment to show that that accepted wisdom is wrong. There's nothing wrong with doing experiments: we do them all the time, whether it's testing drugs or the work of economists like Esther Duflo, these are crucial. And I sure hope if throws sand back in the face of those who have given up on these communities.

117 points by adam 12y ago

Whole Foods also opened the first full supermarket in downtown Detroit. Imagine a city of 700,000 people without a single supermarket. Course they received millions in subsidies to do it. But the program was out there for awhile and no other supermarket chain would take the chance. Whole Foods success was followed by other chains. However the other chains took the subsidies and built their supermarkets out on 8 mile which is the dividing line between Detroit and the suburbs. While the stores are technically within Detroit the suburbs are right across the street so their risk was much lower.

ironchef 12y ago
There are actually quite a few other supermarkets in the area (like E and L). It's the chains that are / were largely scared (outside of like Spartan)
bluedino 12y ago
>> Whole Foods also opened the first full supermarket in downtown Detroit. Imagine a city of 700,000 people without a single supermarket. Don't spread this lie. I know food deserts are a popular myth but there are plenty of grocery stores in the city of Detroit. Sure, they might not have a Kroger or Meijer but there are plenty of smaller grocery stores like Save A Lot and ethnic markets. People don't really think everyone in Detroit lives on a diet of snack foods, $1 menu burgers, and fruit flavored soft drinks, do they?
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > People don't really think everyone in Detroit lives on a diet of snack foods, $1 menu burgers, and fruit flavored soft drinks, do they? Some people apparently think all Americans live that way. Never underestimate the power of preconceptions and stereotypes, especially when they're Not Racist.
- cynicalkane 12y ago
  "Supermarket" refers to a grocery store that is significantly larger than traditional neighborhood grocery stores.
- arturnt 12y ago
  I shop organic, typically at farmer's markets, and actively cook. I lived in Toledo for a little while and visited Detroit. While you have access to supermarkets in that part of the country the access is very poor. I ate a lot of fast food simply because fast food is within 5 min and a super market is often times 30 min. Produce is typically poor quality and imported.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    https://www.google.com/maps/search/supermarket/@41.6476485,-83.5350869,13z https://www.google.com/maps/search/supermarket/@41.6476485,-... It doesn't look that bad. Did you somehow miss Kroger and Meijer are supermarkets?
    - deleted 12y ago
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- rmason 12y ago
  Most of the coders living downtown I know before Whole Foods all drove to the suburbs to shop. Those small stores offered little variety along with limited selections of fruits and vegetables.
- omaranto 12y ago
  Nobody said Detroit was a food desert or that it had no grocery stores. The claim was that it had no supermarket. You said "don't spread this lie" but then gave no evidence it was a lie. Is it a lie (I wouldn't know)?

fiatmoney 12y ago

"Nor is it a bet, by Whole Foods, on neighborhood change." Although, if the neighborhood did happen to gentrify, as has been the goal of the Emanuel administration for Chicago as a whole, that would be a happy coincidence.

johnloeber 12y ago
Normally, gentrification is a slow creep that happens on a block-by-block basis. This does not apply to Englewood. The Whole Foods is being built essentially in the heart of urban poverty in Chicago.
selectodude 12y ago
Nobody is moving to Englewood because a Whole Foods opened up.

mynameishere 12y ago

They only mention SNAP in passing, but I guarantee it features large on the spreadsheets back at HQ. Everyone I've known who was on it seemed a little nostalgic about buying expensive food they wouldn't normally. (However, my sample size is two).

buttcoinslol 12y ago
This was my first instinct, Whole Foods wants to see if the SNAP money can subsidize a location in a low income area.
- gumby 12y ago
  Which is not inherently a bad thing.
GabrielF00 12y ago
The average monthly SNAP benefit per person in Illinois is $138/month, or $4.60 a day. You're not going to be living large on it. [http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/18SNAPavg$PP.pdf http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/18SNAPavg$PP....]
- Retric 12y ago
  If you spend 4.60 per day on unprocessed food and a little meat you can get high quality food. But you need to cook it. Or you can basically starve on chips and soda. Now if your unemployed / underemployed and have free time foor cooking it's not unreasonable to shop at whole foods. Assuming you don't need to watch kids / elderly / or the disabled. Though transportation is often a major issue keeping people shopping at the corner store.
- buttcoinslol 12y ago
  There are 2,040,053 SNAP recipients in IL, at an average of $138 per month, total benefits equal $281,527,314. Per month. Even if only a quarter live in Chicago, that's still nearly $1 billion a year in SNAP benefits in Chicago alone.

rahij 12y ago

On the topic of Whole Foods: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8609515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8609515

raldi 12y ago

Can we get a "saved you a click" summary?

RyJones 12y ago
Ten million dollar subsidy by the city of Chicago, high SNAP redemption flow in Detroit store in similar situation.

michaelchisari 12y ago

With the shift in other supermarkets carrying more organic and "luxury" items like Jewel and Mariano's purchasing Dominick's locations and building stores that carry a wide range of organic to normal shelf items, Whole Foods isn't the high end gem it once was. You can now get the things you got there at regular stores (that have more acceptable pricing). My guess is this is putting pressure on Whole Foods' growth strategy.

larrys 12y ago
"My guess is this is putting pressure on Whole Foods' growth strategy." Agree. And it will be interesting to see the exact product mix of that store is vs. the one that is located where I am. My guess (in addition to what the article says) it will be quite different. At a local WF "clone" that I also frequent (just opened) last night I bought some raw pistachios. I didn't even look at the price. When I got to the register they were $13.50 for 8 ozs. (I'm sure WF has a similar product.) My point is that's easily an 1 hour's after tax wage or more in that area. (Maybe 2 hours..) Hard to believe the product mix is going to include items like that. Anyway growth wise WF could come up with a new brand (which is typically what would happen) but here they decide to use the same premium brand name because, and this is important and in addition to any PR benefit, the people who would shop at an upscale whole foods won't know what goes on at this Whole Foods (if it in fact would even matter to them). It could look like a warehouse and they'd never know that. Not the same as with a consumer product that makes it into the channel and could destroy your brand name.

larrys 12y ago

"an 18,000-square-foot Whole Foods." 18,000 is actually small for a supermarket and in fact the average Whole Foods is 38,000 square feet: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/whole_foods_market_inc/index.html http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/whole_...

rpenm 12y ago

I've lived in Englewood. I can confirm a lack of quality produce - I'd have to travel to Hyde Park, Chinatown or the South Loop for that. However, I doubt Whole Foods will draw too many neighborhood customers away from the Food-4-Less or Aldi. Price matters. The Englewood location is probably more about cheap land near the I-90/94, which links downtown Chicago to the South Side, and south suburbs. This location is also close to the Hyde Park (University of Chicago) and Woodlawn neighborhoods, which are more affluent.

BostonEnginerd 12y ago
Would you consider Aldi's to not be a real supermarket? We have one in my neighborhood in MA and you can find passably good produce there. It's certainly not as nice of an experience as the Whole Foods, but you still find organics there. Calling an area that has an Aldi a "food desert" doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
- rpenm 12y ago
  The Aldi in Englewood isn't really a supermarket - it's more like a dollar-store version of Trader Joe's. They also don't sell much produce (maybe 10 feet of shelf space), and it's usually been sitting on the shelf a while. I think this is more about customer demand than availability. Chicago gets plenty of great produce through its wholesalers (and role as a freight hub) - high quality produce is abundant and cheap at the Latino markets.
  - kourt 12y ago
    dollar-store version of Trader Joe's The family resemblance is to be expected since the two brands are the result of feuding brothers splitting their family business: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/12/02/aldi_grocery_store_best_in_america_related_to_trader_joe_s.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/12/02/aldi_grocery_...
  - BostonEnginerd 12y ago
    Fair enough! The one over here has a pretty solid frozen vegetable section and reasonably good fresh produce ($0.99 unripe avocados!!!). I'd estimate that they have about 20ft of shelf space for fresh stuff.

et2o 12y ago

This is a really huge deal. Englewood is a hurting neighborhood and community. These food deserts are real. Children in these areas sometimes grow up eating out of vending machines because there aren't any alternatives. I'm not a romantic, but having had some firsthand experience, these situations are really tragic. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a package deal with the new Whole Foods opening in Hyde Park near the University of Chicago.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
Food deserts are real, and caused by consumer choice. Giving people access to health food does not result in an increase in vegetable consumption or a reduction in BMI. http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/giving-people-access-to-healthier-food-isnt-enough/ http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/giving-people-ac... tl;dr; The issue is demand side, not supply side.
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  So... i know someone. One day his kids were hungry and asked for something to eat. He gave them each a candy bar. He had access to FREE healthy food as he was staying with my parents at the time and he could eat anything there. He could have literally walked two rooms away to the kitchen and found something for them to eat. But i guess he thought a candy bar was just as good as any other food.
- smtddr 12y ago
  Note the last part of his article: "Access may be necessary, but it’s not sufficient. Policies that are aimed at just eliminating food deserts may not work. More needs to be done." There are a lot of reasons poor people don't eat healthier; supply is definitely part of it. But not just supply of food, supply of time as well. A poor person is probably working some physically taxing job and is just too tired to cook a healthy meal. Or too tired to get to the market selling healthy food, or... a million other things. It's not just "demand", it's not that they just don't want to eat healthy. Some don't even know fast food is unhealthy. Don't forget, we have people on HN defending fastfood hamburgers..... so imagine the potential confusion about nutrition in a poor & less educated community.

marincounty 12y ago

Never thought I would stick up for Whole Foods, but their price on the basics(milk, butter, some bread, flour) is cheaper/same price than Safeway. Their bulk food section is overpriced. I'm not sure why they overprice the bulk foods; I think they figure we can't do the math? Examlpe: Lumberg rice is cheaper than WF bulk rice? If anyone from Whole Foods reads this, and I imagine everyone of these posts are going to be dissected my management--get rid of the Security Guards. If you are that conserved about theft, use undercover guards.

btoptical 12y ago
The Whole Foods in Almaden (affluent South San Jose) hires off-duty San Jose PD to provide security. The officers are in full uniform and carry their utility belt and service weapon.
dcre 12y ago
> Get rid of the security guards. I assure you, they will not. http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/community http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/community

deleted 12y ago

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Animats 12y ago

I could see putting in a Trader Joe's, but Whole Foods? Whole Foods is overpriced silliness. "Organic salt", stuff like that.

jim_greco 12y ago
Each area is different I guess. In NYC Whole Foods is among the cheapest of the supermarkets and one of the highest in quality. For example, Gristedes and Morton Williams cost more and their fruits/veges selection is poor.
- maratd 12y ago
  I think you mean Manhattan, the other boroughs have a few more options like Waldbaums and Key Food, etc. Manhattan sucks for decent affordable groceries because there's a substantial culture of frequently eating out and those that eat in normally do so because they want the gourmet experience at home, so they're looking for high-end stuff. That and everything costs more in Manhattan. Go across the river to NJ and right away you'll see Wholefoods is obscenely expensive when compared to Trader Joe's, H Mart, Pathmark, Shop Rite, and local farmers markets.
  - zkhalique 12y ago
    Does Trader Joes cost less than Whole Foods in Manhattan?
    - matznerd 12y ago
      Yes it does.
    - rpedroso 12y ago
      Yes, but there are only 3 Trader Joe's in all of Manhattan. Two of them are down near NYU and the other is on the Upper West side, which makes them difficult to access for people living in midtown, uptown and virtually the entire east side. On the upper east side, where I live, the options are pretty much Gristedes, Morton Williams, Food Emporium and Fairway. Gristedes and Morton Williams are overpriced with a bad selection of produce. Food Emporium is worse. Fairway's prices are more reasonable and the produce selection is actually quite good, but I tend to think the quality of Whole Foods' produce is a bit better.

waynecochran 12y ago

Favorite quote: “No one steals vegetables.”

sremani 12y ago

I do not know about Chicago or Englewood, so I do not have much to comment on this particular stuff, but riding on the theme - I work across a Whole Foods and across the street are many low-income apartments, I did not find many people from those apartments shopping or working at whole foods. If their desire is to address food deserts this store has to be completely different from their standard configuration and unless that is not the case, this is either well-intentioned yet misguided effort or calculated low cost land acquisition.

keithpeter 12y ago

"The neighborhood was targeted by the city as a "food desert," although corner stores are common and discount-grocer Aldi's is just down the street." My corner shops and my local Aldi must be unusual. No problem sourcing fresh produce at reasonable prices (UK). I wonder if anyone is looking out for the corner shop people.

wodenokoto 12y ago
Isn't that what the 'although' in the sentence means? That the neighborhood was designated as a food desert, despite having stores that sell fresh produce?
- keithpeter 12y ago
  OK, so 'food desert' means something different to what I thought it meant.
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fndrplayer13 12y ago

My wife and I are very much into knowing where our food came from, how it was raised/produced, etc. As you can imagine, we shop primarily at Whole Foods (outside of our CSA). We are also interested in making sure we buy these products at the best possible prices. So we routinely cross-shop at places like Marianos and even Jewel for these items. Interestingly, the cost of these types of items are almost always cheaper at Whole Foods than anywhere else. I think Marianos and Jewel mark these items up much higher because they take up precious shelf space and tend to move more slowly than the non-organic and/or mass-produced items. Just something to be aware of. If you're concerned about where your food came from, Whole Foods is actually not overpriced. If you look at how European families spend money on groceries proportional to their income, I think the Whole Foods model is more in line with that than the familiar American model. I'd have to Google the numbers, but I believe American families spend roughly 10% of their income on food, whereas Europeans will spend 15-20% of their income. With all that being said, surely this is a huge risk on Whole Food's part, and I'm not quite sure how it will turn out. I enjoy that there is probably some portion of idealism in this move and I hope it works for both WF and more importantly the residents.

tptacek 12y ago
It might not be obvious if you're a vegetarian (or just minimize meat consumption), but Whole Foods is not the most cost-effective way to get high-quality traceable meat. I routinely pay more per-pound for lower-quality protein at Whole Foods than I do at Butcher and Larder, a boutique whole-animal butcher.
- fndrplayer13 12y ago
  Yeah +1 that makes a lot of sense. I eat meat 1-2x a month.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

I hope that (assuming the demographics really do skew poor and food stamps) that the cashiers aren't mandated to harass the cusomters with WFs bullshit charities. I used to work at the Palo Alto WF for 4 years, and a couple of times a year there were periods where it was mandatory for cashiers to ask customers about WFs latest bullshit charity schemes-like the Whole Planet Foundation, etc. It was bad enough doing that in rich PAMPA, but hopefully the store management has a bit more flexibility opening up in freaking Detroit (assuming its not a store heavily visited by 28 year old start up employees with obscene amounts of money).

tptacek 12y ago

Putting a Whole Foods in Englewood is fraught for the same reason it would be in Humboldt Park (well, minus the gentrification issue). Go to Jimenez or Del Rancho and check out the produce section: it's comparable in size to a Whole Foods, but stocked very differently. You can find a small tub of lemongrass or buddhas hand citrus at Whole Foods, along with a small tub of jalapenos and maybe a plaintain. You can't find buddhas hand at Jimenez at all, but fresh peppers are stacked floor to ceiling. Produce variety at Jimenez is poorer than Whole Foods. But quantity is much greater, and quality is higher. Jimenez does a better job at stocking the ingredients people in their neighborhood actually use. Similarly: you can get cheap-cheap-cheap top round or ground pork or skirt or chorizo at Del Rancho. You can't get hanger steak, air-chilled cage-free chicken, or 15 varieties of chicken-apple sausage. Having a serious grocery store in Englewood is an unalloyed good thing, no matter whether they choose to stock Organic Valley Sour Cream or Salvadoran crema (the crema is better, by the way). But if Whole Foods really wants to help the south side, they're going to have run a different kind of Whole Foods. It would be really neat to see them try.

gumby 12y ago

This is super exciting. I was disappointed by one pull quote: "This is not an experiment. African American people are not an experiment,” Thompson says. “People need to stop thinking like that, that we cannot afford the things that people in other communities have.” The fact is: this is a poor community, and the accepted wisdom is that they can't have nice things. This is indeed an experiment to show that that accepted wisdom is wrong. There's nothing wrong with doing experiments: we do them all the time, whether it's testing drugs or the work of economists like Esther Duflo, these are crucial. And I sure hope if throws sand back in the face of those who have given up on these communities.