wholefoods

Whole Foods: The World's Leader in Natural and Organic Foods

Filed under: Dining

Whole Foods is a nominee for a Luxist Award in the Best Gourmet Grocery/Food Hall category.

In 1978, a 25 year-old college dropout named John Mackey and his 21 year-old Rene Lawson Hardy started Whole Foods in Austin, Texas with $45,000 borrowed from family and friends. Backs then, there were only a handful of natural food grocers in the country, and the store wasn't quite the glitzy organic palace of modern times; it wasn't even known as Whole Foods yet. Mackey and Hardy called their natural foods store "SaferWay," a spoof of the supermarket Safeway.

When the couple got kicked out of their apartment for storing large quantities of food there, they decided to live at the store. Lacking a shower stall, they bathed in the shop's dishwasher using its attached water hose. This bohemian lifestyle wouldn't be necessary for long. In 1980, SaferWay merged with Clarksville Natural Grocery to form Whole Foods.

Less than a year after the grand opening, an epic flood rolled through Austin, wiping out $400,000 worth of Whole Foods' inventory and equipment. Customers and neighbors volunteered to help put the store back on its feet, and Whole Foods was able to re-open a month after the flood.

Three years later, Whole Foods began to expand, starting with locations in Houston and Dallas. In 1989, the company expanded to California and began scooping up other natural foods chains around the country. In 2001 the company opened its first Manhattan location and expanded to the U.K. in 2004.

Today, the company boasts 275 stores through out the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Each location is packed with an astounding array of natural foods from gourmet cheese to fresh fish. For the unlucky few who live far from a bricks-and-mortar Whole Foods, the company ships non-perishables through its website.

Vote now for what you believe is the best of breed in Gourmet Foods. Readers' Choice Awards for Food will be announced on November 30th.

Gallery: More from Whole Foods

Tags: awards-main, food-awards, gourmet food, GourmetFood, luxist-awards, whole foods, whole foods market, WholeFoods, WholeFoodsMarket

Whole Foods Brings Rare Arctic Char to Market

by Tracy Chait (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Whole Foods Market announced via press release that during the month of January it will offer rare Arctic Char from Iceland, a fish you might see on the menu at a chic restaurant, but rarely in the grocery store.

Related to salmon and trout, this Arctic Char was raised in a typically-WholeFoodsy-sounding environment involving water filtration through lava rock by the Samherji cooperative of Icelandic fish farmers on the south coast of the country.

No word from my local Whole Foods on price or an exact arrival date, but they said it would be any day now.

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Tags: arctic char, ArcticChar, fish, grocery shopping, GroceryShopping, wholefoods

WholeFoods Donates $30K to Farm Aid

by Tracy Chait (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Big Givers

Whole Foods stores in Portland and Seattle recently participated in Community Giving Day, agreeing to donate 5% of the day's sales to Farm Aid, a non-profit org that supports local farmers.

The total came to $30,000, money which will help farmers produce and market their food.

"We appreciate [Whole Foods] customers who value family farmers and the food that only they can grow," said Carolyn Mugar , Farm Aid's executive director, in a press release.

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Tags: farm aid, FarmAid, portland, seattle, whole foods, WholeFoods

The Better Bag (Reusable and Recyclable), Handbag of the Day

by Tracy Chait (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Handbags, Green

Tired of the paper vs. plastic debate? (New York Times columnist John Tierney recently said not to worry about plastic bags, but I and the 100 billion flimsy sacks tossed last year beg to differ.) If you don't yet have your own canvas grocery-getters (I pride myself on vintage WholeFoods totes, circa 1996 -- should I try eBaying them for massive profit?), check out The Better Bag. It's basically an eco-friendly triple threat: reusable, recyclable and crafted from recycled materials. Not to mention washable, waterproof and kind of good-looking.

Manufactured by Massachusetts company CSI Plastics, a long-time plastics recycler, The Better Bag is available for purchase through its website, which recommends buying the bag in bulk to distribute at your next fundraiser or event. Finally a schwag bag you can do some good with.

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Tags: handbag, recycle, recycling, reuseable bags, ReuseableBags, the better bag, TheBetterBag, wholefoods

Whole Foods Gets Into The Spa Business

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spas

Whole Foods Markets is getting into the spa business. The natural supermarket opened Refresh--The Everyday Spa at Whole Foods Market last week in a Dallas store. The 4,500-square-foot spa has seven treatment rooms and offers scrubs, massages and other treatments. There is also a private balcony where lunch from a special spa menu is served and a shop which sells beauty products and organic clothing. The spa is on a second floor removed from the hubbub of the grocery store and for $20 per hour you can ditch your shopping list at the concierge desk and get a massage while someone else picks up your groceries. If the spa works out well in Dallas then the concept will be rolled out to other stores.

[via Marketing Daily]

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Tags: dallas, spa, supermarket, whole foods, WholeFoods

Whole Foods Launches Upscale Cosmetics Line

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Cosmetics and Fragrance

Looking for ways to expand their non-food offerings, Whole Foods is releasing a complete line of over 100 mineral-based cosmetic products, including everything from lipstick to bronzer, into the Whole Body section of their stores. This move is designed to set the apart from other stores that offer a mere nod to natural beauty by offering moisturizers or just, for example, a foundation. The line is called Mineral Fusion and will most likely be available in other stores, such as Sephora, as well. Individual items will generally be in the $15-$40 range.

The appeal of mineral cosmetics is that they are all-natural, with no talc, preservatives or any other kind of chemical. Most feel that it keeps the skin cleaner and fresher than other makeups.

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Tags: cosmetics, makeup, mineral fusion, whole foods, WholeFoods