Absolutely false. That is the entire stated purpose of the 365 brand. What 365 does not cover is produce and meat. Meat is definitely more expensive at Whole Foods as they do not use it as a loss leader like other stores. I also sometimes wonder if one of the founders being vegan had something to do with that. Produce at WF is definitely about merchandising. The lower priced produced is very well hidden.
> shop at multiple stores (extremely difficult if you are poor)
Poor people don't have legs? I was poor for most of my life. I rode a bicycle to the grocery store. And the 365 brand stuff is mostly non-perishables. You can shop for non-perishables every couple of weeks.
Admit it. You just do not like the brand and identity the Whole Foods represents. It has nothing to do with the actual products or prices.
No. In so many ways, no. If the trade off is to save a few dollars by running around for multiple hours per week to go to multiple stores (uses gas! or takes a long time!), or just going to the nearest cheap store to get everything they need, they're going to Walmart.
It has nothing to do with brand and identity and everything to do with not wasting precious time and money.
I mean, I live in an area where there’s a Whole Foods within two blocks’ walking distance of two other grocery stores (one mid-market, one down-market.)
I think this isn’t actually that uncommon; people don’t see Whole Foods as actually satisfying the demand for “a grocery store” in an area (as it doesn’t carry many of the things people expect a larger grocery store to carry—it may have decent produce, deli, bakery, etc. sections, but its grocery section is rather lacking in anything other than up-market “bougie” brands) so if there’s an existing other grocery store, and then a Whole Foods also gets built, that doesn’t much decrease the traffic to the other grocery store to the point that it would close down.
The only problem is property developers marketing a new neighbourhood that only has a Whole Foods as being “close to a grocery store”, and people believing them and moving there. That Whole Foods was probably already there before the neighbourhood was, serving as an outlet to travel to for the larger region that that the new neighbourhood is located in; but the other parts of the region were being served by grocery stores located closer to them, and this new neighbourhood actually doesn’t have one of those.
What do you regard as the grocery section?
I go to the grocery store weekly and all I buy, pretty much, are bread, dairy, and produce.
Do you mean stuff like breakfast cereal and peanut butter?
>I get the impression it caters to people for whom cooking for themselves is a special occasion and not a daily thing.
I'm really confused, you think WF caters to people who don't cook for themselves, but you feel like it's missing condiments and sauces? That's weird, people who cook for themselves probably aren't looking to smother their food with ketchup.
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