Will it last? When I heard about the price cuts, I went in to check it out. I pretty much never shop there, so I'm part of that 25% jump. In the end I saw no real difference and no reason to return.
Amazon buys this companies and they never really seem to work out over time, eg. zappos, diapers. Major grocery chains will just get smarter and more aggressive with pricing.
Zappos is a huge success for customer service and returns, but they've been losing marketshare for years. Amazon just wants to show high revenue numbers and mask operating losses. Don't think that Walmart with acquisition of shoebuy is going to sit around and not steal revenue. Too many people think if Amazon buys a company it's going to turn into gold, the only thing that is goldmine is AWS. Whole Foods won't be immune from stiff competition going forward, everybody knows there brand is expensive regardless if they drop prices 25%.
Zappos's CEO gets more eccentric all the time, and the site's search function could use updating, but the selection remains excellent and service is first-rate. We still use them.
Other Amazon acquisitions such as IMDB, Goodreads and Audible seem to be humming along. Kiva, now Amazon Robots, is crushing it. (Little joke there.)
I have to imagine this is part of a larger play for Amazon Fresh. Physical locations around the US acting as mini logistic centers for their Amazon Fresh drivers to pick up orders and/or compile orders.
I can't really imagine Amazon wanting to get into the brick and mortar business, especially in Grocery stores.
That's probably because (As was alluded to in other threads on HN), most of the price cuts came to low-turnover specialty goods. The $8 bottle of lavender water is now $6.
I used to shop at Whole Foods regularly back when they were Fresh Fields in the mid to late 90s. Now I find them just too expensive. Maybe it's just me, because back then, I was feeding a couple of toddlers and now I'm feeding several large eating machines.
Yeah, I think one of the plastic containers of arugula was $.50 cheaper. But it's the organic one, so it depends on whether you normally buy that kind.
Any price cuts on bread, pork, sausage, potatoes, tilapia, tomatoes, onions, leeks, beets, rice, beans? From the '49 discounts' link in this thread, the answer seems to be 'no'.
Vine-ripened tomatoes were cut by $1/lb at my store (from $2.99 to $1.99). The bulk rices all dropped, but I don't remember by how much.
Canned beans were already pretty competitive, don't think any dried ones changed. No change on onions, leeks, beets, pork, or bread that I noticed. Tilapia went down by a couple bucks a pound.
But the things on discount are the things that everyone gets. Milk, eggs, bananas, etc. I shop at whole foods (it's the only place truly 'near' to me), and the things on discount were just about the things that I always get. So I'm happy, for one.
But 50% of stuff I still get from Costco or Trader Joe's (that requires a forty minute drive).
White label Milk, eggs, and some other stuff has always been price competitive at whole foods... Sometimes I found milk cheaper at whole foods than safeway!
On milk you may be right. Whole Foods doesn't sell exclusively organic, but they do exclusively sell, e.g., hormone-free products. Whole Foods effectively has a price floor that limits how competitive they can be.
I've found milk and eggs to be sometimes slightly cheaper at Safeway, but they're really bottom-of-the-barrel brands and not something I'd buy anyhow. The brand of non-organic eggs I buy is sold by both WF and Safeway, but WF is consistently <= than Safeway, and there's only one or two brands at Safeway that is cheaper.
But this is pocket change. For higher-priced things, like meats (ground beef, chicken), I find WF's prices to more than make up the difference. Generally, unless Grocery Outlet has a great deal, we just default to buying meat, eggs, dairy, and vegetables at WF when we can. Unfortunately, WF is less convenient for us than Safeway, so we do regularly shop (and pay more for it) at Safeway if we're pressed for time.
Gallon of whole milk was $3.50 at Whole Foods in Berkeley yesterday. A welcome sight indeed. I also noticed butter prices were very discounted so picked up an extra brick.
From one milk lover to another, what's your favorite and additionally best value brand for milk? I haven't recorded my preferences but seem to remember disliking Trader Joe's and being plenty surprised by a value brand or two.
I dunno man, I have seen standard size organic milk carton go for $5.12 at Whole Foods where as 3 standard size Organic milk cartons are $10 plus change at costco. I have shopped at Whole Foods before and after and it has def. got cheaper at key essentials such as - organic egg, organic milk and organic chicken. Now the costs are more in Target/Kroger range.
In CA eggs are about $1.50 at T.J. and $3.00 at W.F. I buy the cheapest eggs. Not sure about comparison at all the other egg types. Cali has some kind of "be not so evil to egg laying chickens" proposition, so I think the lowest level eggs are the same eco/ethical level
I'm concerned about whether their infra can handle it -- part of the reason for the higher prices is to throttle the demand to something manageable without the staff they can afford to run the store. Didn't the rush from this overload them? Can they afford to ramp up for long-term lower prices?
The real question is how long until Amazon starts to raise the prices again? It's a smart PR move if you think about it. Lower prices to get more shoppers in the door and then slowly raise prices to pre sale values. They already know people will gladly pay the higher prices.
That's not Amazon's MO, or goal with the Whole Foods purchase. They want to dominate the grocery industry like they dominate the durable goods industry.
Completely agree with this. I'd also add that amazon doesn't just seek to dominate an industry but also to make it difficult for future competitors to enter the space in the first place. Raising prices could in theory create a gap for a future/current competitor to step in.
While that makes sense in a generic, economic theory, this isn't how Amazon has operated. Ever. So I don't see why you're picking this hill to die on.
My money is on Amazon doing what they have always done: compete with wide selections and the cheapest pricing possible while using Whole Foods to bring their Fresh delivery service to far more markets at a higher efficiency.
I agree with this. It's gotten to the point that when I need something I buy it from Amazon, with the only exception being food. And that last part might change.
I'm already buying everything I need from Amazon other than food... and since Amazon Fresh I've been buying food once per month, sometimes twice per month, as a Friday morning "no shopping trip for this weekend" move - in fact I spend less than I would have at Harris Teeter based on past experience.
I would have done this with Peapod etc but their website was lacking in 1) choices (Amazon will get you pretty much any food item) and 2) delivery window and 3) unattended delivery
Amazon as a company believes margins are an opportunity, either for them, or for someone else. They don't believe in raising prices unless forced to by something external. You aren't correct here, they believe in making money on volume and breadth of services / products.
They may dominate lots of durable goods categories in terms of online sales. They don't dominate many when sales from all channels are taken into consideration. I would be careful using generalities like you just used.
Actually Amazon isn't always the lowest price or the best selection; their #1 aim is to try to be the most convenient (where cost is an important, but not exclusive, factor in "convenience"). In fact they differentiate prices to different consumers and ramp up prices in some popular items when they think they can increase margin. (Not that there's anything necessarily nefarious about that). They do try to make it hard to compare prices, which other retailers do as well.
> [n]or goal with the Whole Foods purchase.
We don't know Amazon's goal with the purchase. There can be several, possibly even competing ones (launch a couple, see what fly). For example they have Echo in the store: it can be just a way to switch people to online ordering and/or a way to see if people buy non-food products through this real estate they already purchased (this is how Fry's transitioned from a grocery store to an electronics store in California) and/or a way to link in-shop shoppers to their online history and/or something we don't even know about -- or they haven't thought of yet.
If Google/Msft were not entering the cloud market, you'll never see as much an aggressive price cut from AWS, and Amazon should be having a way bigger a market cap right now.
As the article hints, this jump is likely driven in part by the millions of dollars of free advertising Whole Foods received from the news, and not simply because there were price cuts.
If you live in a town with a Whole Foods, you already know it's there. And nothing physically changed to the stores overnight.
Announcing a price cut seems way more likely to draw in comparison shoppers to see what cuts were made, and if they compare to people's current regular supermarkets.
Say Coca-Cola buys McDonald's Corporation and it makes a splash in the business community and restaurant blogs. Then the new joint company announces that all soft drinks are $0.10 from now on.
Traffic spikes 25%. Which of those two events was the cause?
That is a false comparison because if you ask people the reason why they don't buy McDonald's more frequently very few of them will cite the cost of soft drinks. Many people will cite the overall cost of Whole Foods as a reason they don't shop there more frequently. Amazon's changes directly addressed the biggest complaint about Whole Foods.
A better analogy might be if Coca-Cola found a way to magically drop the calorie total of McDonald's food without altering the taste.
Price is the #1 reason I do not choose to shop at Whole Foods. If they fixed price, I'd be in there a lot more - the food is generally better, but not so much better to justify the price increase (for me).
I haven't been yet, because my habits right now exist around not going to whole foods. They've achieved a willingness for me to try them out again though - probably the next time the Fred Meyer near me is out of english muffins (3rd time in 3 weeks yesterday!) I'll try it out.
Having seen some of the price cuts online it doesn't seem like a whole lot, but if the staples like eggs and veggies/fruit are actually coming down ($3 peaches, $5 eggplants from what I remember) and I can get a week's worth of not-pasta food for under $150 I'd probably switch over.
Yes it should, but one of the major features/downsides of supermarkets is it doesn't allow you to think about whats in season vs not. Corn can be a dollar an ear even in October when harvesting happens. Tomatoes are the same all year round (tasteless/watery/tart), as are almost all greens. Berries in the winter come from Chile.
If a supermarket had an "in season" section I would shop there almost exclusively, if it meant I was going to to get a good deal and better produce. Even with farmers markets you're not guaranteed to get in season local produce.
> Eating local in-season food should be promoted by market mechanisms.
Given that the market is at work, that is obviously not the result. Transport costs do not apparently override convenience, simpler logistics, and economies of scale.
You may or may not know this, but that mindset is the exact reason the produce in major chains are so crappy in taste. It's not cheap to produce food, and if you want something that actually taste good it's more expensive.
People rave about cheap meat, eggs, and diary products. But anyone that has actually been involved in producing it, knows that the price you see today is not sustainable unless you only optimize for quantity, and the expense of everything else.
FYI many (possibly all) of the Whole Foods here in Seattle did in fact change overnight: they added higher shelves, rearranged the layouts & product placements etc. All of this happened within the final day of the switch from what I can tell.
Not sure why I'm being downvoted. A price cut might net you more sales from existing customers, but you don't get a 25% jump in foot traffic without people being told about the price cuts (whether thru paid advertising or word of mouth/earned media)
You're being down voted for being snarky about someone's post without adding any value and then just re-treading the OP's point. If it goes without saying, there's not point just saying it again, and again even if it's correct.
Possibly, but let me share a story: in the days after the discounts were announced the Whole Foods brand organic butter was completely sold out at my local store, much to my annoyance. That never happened before the 50 cent discount.
So it appears masses of shoppers went into Wholefoods to take advantage of price cuts, but couldn't because those items had sold out. But since they were there anyway....
Great way to draw in the crowds without actually losing all that much from the price cuts.
I went in last week to pick up a couple of things. The store was extra insane with people. I looked but didn't see anything marked down. My thought as I exited: "suckers".
Announced price cuts. We've been in WF before and after the buyout. Didn't see much difference. Still prefer to go to farmers markets and discount grocers like Aldi's.
I am also an infrequent Whole Foods shopper. Some anecdata to share:
I went to Whole Foods the week before the announcement and then again today. I was very sensitive to pricing on the first visit (and, frankly, was pretty surprised at how expensive most things were). On the second visit today, I noticed big drops in the prices of certain items, such as fish, produce, and yogurt.
For instance, I don't think there was any fish cheaper than $15/pound before the takeover, yet today Cobo Salmon behind the counter was $10/pound (sale) and shrimp was $12/pound (regular price).
It was also possible to buy organic Gala apples for $1.50/pound (sale) and cauliflower at $2.50/head (normal price).
It's not as cheap as the "normal" supermarkets in the area, but it's more competitive than before. Of course, these could be seasonal variations -- for instance, apples are in season in New England right now.
Was that U.S. shrimp or imported? There are very significant differences in environmental sustainability across the various supply chains for meat, fish, produce, and dairy products.
Seafood at my local Kroger is almost all labeled "Product of China" which I refuse to buy due to concerns about not only the fishing but also the handling and packing after the catch.
Edit: I'm mostly referring to the frozen seafood. Fresh is too expensive for my wallet.
What happens during the packaging/handling that couldn't be killed by cooking? Is that where the mercury issue is (I thought tainted water was the bigger issue)?
No, those apples are fresh. They're cheap because it's apple season. The gala apples on sale are probably too small to do well in long-term storage. Whole Foods isn't the only grocer selling those, either. I bought a bag and just noticed today that my office (a big Silicon Valley company who sources commercially) put out bowls of the same apples (they're conspicuously small and yellow for gala apples).
I don't get all this business about Whole Foods being expensive. I went to Costco, Safeway, and Whole Foods this past Sunday. Per usual, the packaged, vacuumed-sealed ground beef was <= the cost elsewhere; $4.99 at WH, $7.99 at Costco, and $6.99 at Safeway. The chicken wasn't on sale today at WF; it was $2.99/lb for a whole fryer that they'll chop up, though often it'll sell for $1.99/lb. But Costco's $1.99/lb packages were sold out, and Safeway is rarely less than $2.99 either. (WF did have organic whole fryers on sale for $2.29/lb, but pre-packaged so they won't chop them up.) I forgot the exact price because I didn't buy any, but the steaks at WF were no more (and perhaps less) than the Costco steaks. You can buy cheaper steaks at Safeway, but they're not worth the money.
Generally, for staples (meat, vegetables, canned goods) I've found Whole Foods to be no more expensive, and often cheaper, than elsewhere, unless I'm buying in bulk at Costco (e.g. a case of canned beans). Whole Foods can do this precisely because people blindly buy their premium products, like prepared foods. Whole Foods sells a huge volume of high-margin items. By contrast, regular grocers make their profit from low-margin staples. Thus, for staples Whole Foods will always be competitive. Moreover, because Whole Foods is upmarket their staples (especially vegetables and meats) are often of better quality if only so they don't detract from the overall feel of the store, and in any event they move quicker off their shelves and are thus often more fresh. Compare the butcher counter at WF to your regular grocer, assuming the regular grocer even has one. I can often get freshly butchered, hormone-free chicken for $1.99/lb (never more than $2.99/lb) at WF; at Safeway the only way to get that price is pre-packaged Perdue chickens.
Don't get me wrong--I've walked out of Whole Foods having paid plenty. But it's knowingly and by choice. And there are plenty of times where I've walked out of Safeway thinking, "WTF!?".
I'm not looking forward to Amazon's cost-cutting measures. If Whole Foods moves down market it means the premium shoppers will go elsewhere and stop subsidizing my purchases. Amazon can subsidize the prices, but I suspect quality and selection of staples will go down.
> The gala apples on sale are probably too small to do well in long-term storage. Whole Foods isn't the only grocer selling those, either.
When you say "do well", you mean they're not going to generate enough revenue? Because big apples generally lose quality faster in long-term storage, according to a book I inherited on how to run an orchard, from 1948. :)
Anecdotally, I find that oversize apples are typically less dense.
The skins were pretty thin and I assumed they'd dry out too quickly given the surface area to volume ratio, notwithstanding the measures taken for long-term storage. But you would know much better than me, as I have no domain knowledge whatsoever.
All I know for sure is that they tasted fresh--dense, crisp, and juicy--and didn't seem to be covered in much, if any, wax. The price partly seemed to reflect an abundance given that we're in apple picking season; and partly reflect their relatively small size, even for galas, and odd coloring--strangely yellowish (I checked the stickers and the labels twice).
That article is from April before new season Apples became available, so the ones on sale then were from the previous year. Now that fresh apples are available there's no point using ones from expensive long term storage, meanwhile some of the current crop are going into the vaults now for sale later in the year, and early next year.
People here are smart enough to realize what this is: a publicity stunt.
Even if you have money, shopping at Whole Foods is foolish. Amazon reduced a fraction of the items prices, they are still heavily over-priced, and the food quality for the price is low. Whole Foods is a grocery store that prices it's food high to attract a certain type of consumer. That's all.
If you want high quality food, I encourage you to visit a local farmer's market. There is probably one close to you every week, or every other week. There are even larger ones or speciality ones less frequently (monthly).
At a farmer's market you'll get high quality produce, fresh that is directly from the farm. All or most of your money will be going to people actually growing or making the food, not a large corporation, food distributor, or Amazon.
I really wish we would just ban grocery stores for good and try to go back to this form of food consumerism.
It would help them the most -- getting rid of grocery stores that sell low quality, sugary mass produced foods and going back to local micro farmers markets is in what form of reality a bad thing?
Many places don't have local micro farmers markets, and even if they did, groceries sell a LOT of food. Are you sure your local farm and meet demand at an affordable cost?
Every local farmers market I've been to has been less expensive than a grocery store. I literally come away with enough food for the week at half the cost of the grocery store produce (Safeway for me). Whole Foods? Probably 1/4th the cost.
Really, truly what I'm saying is true. For people who don't even have a grocery store, I think things like community gardens (a garden that is shared between a block of neighbors) is a perfectly scalable, healthy and affordable solution.
"The USDA defines what's considered a food desert and which areas will be helped by this initiative: To qualify as a “low-access community,” at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles)." [1]
Traveling over a mile to a grocery store is a big deal for somebody without a car -- especially if they're elderly, disabled, or have children.
I am not sure farmer's markets are prepared, and perhaps could never be prepared, for the type of volume they would have to do to entirely replace grocery stores.
As someone who lives in a big city, grocery stores here are packed at all hours. There will be dozens of checkout lines open going through customers as fast as they can. There are a ton of grocery stores, too, with each one as busy.
Farmer's markets are clearly not as effecient at serving customers as a supermarket, which means they would be even more crowded. We would have to have a LOT more of them to replace all of the supermarkets, and they would take up a lot more space than the current supermarkets to serve the same number of people.
As a busy parent of a toddler, grocery shopping already takes up a lot more time than I want it to. I can't imagine trying to fit the extra time it would take to shop at a farmers market for everything into my schedule.
When we think about making some sort of massive change to the way we live our lives (like everyone doing all shopping at farmer's markets), we have to really think about what it would mean to operate at that scale. What might work great for you as an individual may not work for everyone in the world, if everyone were to change their behavior.
An hour of a software engineer's time is worth ~$30-50. At least, many of them happily pay that much for someone to do an hour's worth of chores for them.
Unless you're buying industrial quantities of food, I doubt a trip to the farmer's market will save you $40. The quality difference is also difficult to quantify. Onions and potatoes from the farmer's market aren't any healthier then onions from the supermarket.
And here's the elephant in the room - at any particular time of year, most of the food that you eat is not in season where you live. If it's not in season, you're not going to get it from your farmer's market (Unless said farmer is reselling it from a wholesaler - which a lot of stalls do.)
Do you spend an hour a week churning butter by hand, or do you pay someone else to do it for you?
I get paid a lot more then $30-50/hr. I discounted my rate for time I'm not at work.
After a point, I will absolutely pay $30 to not lose another hour of sleep.
Either way, you're missing the point. Time is money. People spend money to save time, and people spend time to save money. Different people have a different rate at which they'll strongly consider doing one over the other.
For most of us, the amount of money we have is very limited. For all of us, the amount of time we have is very limited. Eventually, we'll all be dead.
I think you are missing my point - if everyone switched to Farmer's markets only, it would overwhelm the system. Farmer's markets are simply not effecient enough to serve the millions of people who live in our large cities.
Whole Foods customers did expect to receive "premium" food at a premium price, but even the richest of them were starting to notice that it was so significantly higher that they would shop elsewhere for at least some of it. Lowering the prices to the point where they are still higher than everyone else but not godlike is a return to the premium feel.
Tech analogy: Apple's stuff truly is much more expensive than most other stuff, but not so expensive that it's completely out of reach for upper to middle class incomes.
Ah, farmers' markets! We have a nice one in our town, and it's fun to visit. But it didn't take long to notice . . .
1. It's a hard life for farmers. To be open for business by 8:30 a.m. for our local gentry, it's necessary to rise at 4 a.m., load up the truck and drive for a couple hours to our town. Some of the smaller-stand operators are on the verge of quitting because the commitment doesn't pay off.
2. Part of shoppers money goes for the farmers' gasoline, travel burden, etc. That's much more intense when food is brought to market inefficiently in many smaller vehicles rather than a single, Interstate-grade truck.
3. Most farmers are trying to move produce at multiple stages of goodness. Yes, there are beautiful peaches at $3.99/pound. There also are squished ones in the mix at times, too, as well as over-ripe ones at $1/pound that the farmers need to sell, too. It's all part of running a store. But someone still has to pick out the good from the not-so-good, and often that's the customer.
Overall, I'm glad farmers' markets exist, and sometimes the goods can be spectacular. But the inefficiencies are too severe for them to take on a dominant role in feeding the USA.
I'm pretty confused by this post. I shop at whole foods regularly and while their prices are high, their product is usually much better than the other stores I visit (kroger, meijer).
I also do not get the "shop at a farmers market exclusively" line of reasoning. We don't have access to farmer's markets in the winter. That's not really a highly available thing where I live (Michigan). Even when it's summer we still do not have access to all the same foods that are available in a grocery store.
I never said farmers markets are the one solution. I do think locally produced food and direct to consumer food could be a solution. It's better to deal locally whenever possible. And contrary to popular belief, local food is very possible to scale and do so efficiently.
Because everyone here seems to only understand the world through software engineer terms, I'll break it down for you: a distributed system is often very efficient and scalable solution to a supply and demand problem.
If Whole Foods becomes anything like Amazon, their locally-sourced grass-fed beef could become commingled meat product from various fly-by-night suppliers that's just "fulfilled by Whole Foods."
Amazon's inability or indifference to combatting counterfeit sellers on their website has completely eroded my trust in eating the food they source.
I've ordered the natural/grass-fed (not sure if it was locally source, probably not since it is encased in plastic, making it last longer) beef from Amazon Fresh and I'm pretty happy with it (I'm probably not thinking sustainably, sorry) because it doesn't spoil as quickly as the beef I buy from my butcher counter. Side effect is that it is usually less, by weight, than the stuff I buy in person, so I end up eating less, which is just fine. (Steak is, for me, hard to portion into leftovers, it is a mind thing).
I've been trying new diets and focusing on reducing my intake of GMOs, specifically corn. For this I've been shopping at Wegman's quite a bit, avoiding Whole Foods which is closer, because of the prices. This article gives me a little hope WF is getting better. Good food costs money, at least that's what we're told, so I'm happy to see things getting more competitive, at least.
What categories did the price cut reflect in. I shop at wholefoods every week and I have not noticed a drop in the prices of fruits, vegetables, milk and neither in the bake/meals section.
Does anyone have any data to back up the price drops? From my anecdotal evidence it seems WF is just as expensive as it was before. I'm sure these price cuts are only on certain products so it would be interesting to know what these are.
They still have ridiculously high prices. For example: a gallon of Crystal Geyser water is $1.50, while in most other places is $1.00. What justifies a 50% premium?
I'm one of these people. I'm very price conscious and have always avoided whole foods. But after seeing the price drop, I gave them a try. My bill was a little more than usual. But given the convenience (its next door) and quality I chose to continue shopping there. I've been going regularly for about a month.
Different anecdote: I am not regular whole foods, but went out of curiosity whether there will be any event related to amazon buyout or just check out if there any significant price drops.
I shop at whole foods frequently mainly for fresh produce and dairy. this is largely because of its proximity to my home.
My other regular grocery chains are my local mom and pop grocery store who is about 300 feet from my house, Costco and target. I avoid Safeway as far as I can.
My observations are
1) my local mom and pop store carries the freshest and cheapest vegetable produce. They are alert to my needs and are doing brisk business with a regular clientele. They source their produce from the central valley ave Sacramento area using a network of independent farms.
2) Costco is great for some produce while making up the true per pound cost for other items e.g. Tomatoes. Additionally I find Costco produce to perish faster.
3) whole foods has dependable produce but at over 50% Mark ups.
My thought about this merger is, if I am HyVee or Price Chopper or whatever your local regional chain supermarket is HOW am I going to survive Amazon? They are past firing across the bow of every grocer in the US, and none of them seem to be moving to survive the Cat 10 hurricane that is Amazon. Few deliver, few have automated inventory with robots, I don't see any of them moving to compete or stem the blood bath that is coming. It reminds me of Palm and its arrogance when Apple entered the mobile phone market.
122 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadOther Amazon acquisitions such as IMDB, Goodreads and Audible seem to be humming along. Kiva, now Amazon Robots, is crushing it. (Little joke there.)
I can't really imagine Amazon wanting to get into the brick and mortar business, especially in Grocery stores.
I used to shop at Whole Foods regularly back when they were Fresh Fields in the mid to late 90s. Now I find them just too expensive. Maybe it's just me, because back then, I was feeding a couple of toddlers and now I'm feeding several large eating machines.
Canned beans were already pretty competitive, don't think any dried ones changed. No change on onions, leeks, beets, pork, or bread that I noticed. Tilapia went down by a couple bucks a pound.
But 50% of stuff I still get from Costco or Trader Joe's (that requires a forty minute drive).
I've never seen a gallon go for above 2.99(if that) at safeway and never seen one below 3.99(if you're lucky) at whole foods
I've found milk and eggs to be sometimes slightly cheaper at Safeway, but they're really bottom-of-the-barrel brands and not something I'd buy anyhow. The brand of non-organic eggs I buy is sold by both WF and Safeway, but WF is consistently <= than Safeway, and there's only one or two brands at Safeway that is cheaper.
But this is pocket change. For higher-priced things, like meats (ground beef, chicken), I find WF's prices to more than make up the difference. Generally, unless Grocery Outlet has a great deal, we just default to buying meat, eggs, dairy, and vegetables at WF when we can. Unfortunately, WF is less convenient for us than Safeway, so we do regularly shop (and pay more for it) at Safeway if we're pressed for time.
From one milk lover to another, what's your favorite and additionally best value brand for milk? I haven't recorded my preferences but seem to remember disliking Trader Joe's and being plenty surprised by a value brand or two.
My money is on Amazon doing what they have always done: compete with wide selections and the cheapest pricing possible while using Whole Foods to bring their Fresh delivery service to far more markets at a higher efficiency.
I would have done this with Peapod etc but their website was lacking in 1) choices (Amazon will get you pretty much any food item) and 2) delivery window and 3) unattended delivery
Actually Amazon isn't always the lowest price or the best selection; their #1 aim is to try to be the most convenient (where cost is an important, but not exclusive, factor in "convenience"). In fact they differentiate prices to different consumers and ramp up prices in some popular items when they think they can increase margin. (Not that there's anything necessarily nefarious about that). They do try to make it hard to compare prices, which other retailers do as well.
> [n]or goal with the Whole Foods purchase.
We don't know Amazon's goal with the purchase. There can be several, possibly even competing ones (launch a couple, see what fly). For example they have Echo in the store: it can be just a way to switch people to online ordering and/or a way to see if people buy non-food products through this real estate they already purchased (this is how Fry's transitioned from a grocery store to an electronics store in California) and/or a way to link in-shop shoppers to their online history and/or something we don't even know about -- or they haven't thought of yet.
If Google/Msft were not entering the cloud market, you'll never see as much an aggressive price cut from AWS, and Amazon should be having a way bigger a market cap right now.
Announcing a price cut seems way more likely to draw in comparison shoppers to see what cuts were made, and if they compare to people's current regular supermarkets.
Say Coca-Cola buys McDonald's Corporation and it makes a splash in the business community and restaurant blogs. Then the new joint company announces that all soft drinks are $0.10 from now on.
Traffic spikes 25%. Which of those two events was the cause?
A better analogy might be if Coca-Cola found a way to magically drop the calorie total of McDonald's food without altering the taste.
Having seen some of the price cuts online it doesn't seem like a whole lot, but if the staples like eggs and veggies/fruit are actually coming down ($3 peaches, $5 eggplants from what I remember) and I can get a week's worth of not-pasta food for under $150 I'd probably switch over.
Seems quite evironmentally unfriendly to subside out of season food solely to appease picky customers.
Eating local in-season food should be promoted by market mechanisms.
If a supermarket had an "in season" section I would shop there almost exclusively, if it meant I was going to to get a good deal and better produce. Even with farmers markets you're not guaranteed to get in season local produce.
Given that the market is at work, that is obviously not the result. Transport costs do not apparently override convenience, simpler logistics, and economies of scale.
People rave about cheap meat, eggs, and diary products. But anyone that has actually been involved in producing it, knows that the price you see today is not sustainable unless you only optimize for quantity, and the expense of everything else.
A typical deal might look like:
Buy 1k units for $0.20 each with an option to buy 200 additional units for $0.40 each.
If sales are above 1200 units, the shop likley can't get hold of any at any price.
Great way to draw in the crowds without actually losing all that much from the price cuts.
I went to Whole Foods the week before the announcement and then again today. I was very sensitive to pricing on the first visit (and, frankly, was pretty surprised at how expensive most things were). On the second visit today, I noticed big drops in the prices of certain items, such as fish, produce, and yogurt.
For instance, I don't think there was any fish cheaper than $15/pound before the takeover, yet today Cobo Salmon behind the counter was $10/pound (sale) and shrimp was $12/pound (regular price).
It was also possible to buy organic Gala apples for $1.50/pound (sale) and cauliflower at $2.50/head (normal price).
It's not as cheap as the "normal" supermarkets in the area, but it's more competitive than before. Of course, these could be seasonal variations -- for instance, apples are in season in New England right now.
Edit: I'm mostly referring to the frozen seafood. Fresh is too expensive for my wallet.
I don't get all this business about Whole Foods being expensive. I went to Costco, Safeway, and Whole Foods this past Sunday. Per usual, the packaged, vacuumed-sealed ground beef was <= the cost elsewhere; $4.99 at WH, $7.99 at Costco, and $6.99 at Safeway. The chicken wasn't on sale today at WF; it was $2.99/lb for a whole fryer that they'll chop up, though often it'll sell for $1.99/lb. But Costco's $1.99/lb packages were sold out, and Safeway is rarely less than $2.99 either. (WF did have organic whole fryers on sale for $2.29/lb, but pre-packaged so they won't chop them up.) I forgot the exact price because I didn't buy any, but the steaks at WF were no more (and perhaps less) than the Costco steaks. You can buy cheaper steaks at Safeway, but they're not worth the money.
Generally, for staples (meat, vegetables, canned goods) I've found Whole Foods to be no more expensive, and often cheaper, than elsewhere, unless I'm buying in bulk at Costco (e.g. a case of canned beans). Whole Foods can do this precisely because people blindly buy their premium products, like prepared foods. Whole Foods sells a huge volume of high-margin items. By contrast, regular grocers make their profit from low-margin staples. Thus, for staples Whole Foods will always be competitive. Moreover, because Whole Foods is upmarket their staples (especially vegetables and meats) are often of better quality if only so they don't detract from the overall feel of the store, and in any event they move quicker off their shelves and are thus often more fresh. Compare the butcher counter at WF to your regular grocer, assuming the regular grocer even has one. I can often get freshly butchered, hormone-free chicken for $1.99/lb (never more than $2.99/lb) at WF; at Safeway the only way to get that price is pre-packaged Perdue chickens.
Don't get me wrong--I've walked out of Whole Foods having paid plenty. But it's knowingly and by choice. And there are plenty of times where I've walked out of Safeway thinking, "WTF!?".
I'm not looking forward to Amazon's cost-cutting measures. If Whole Foods moves down market it means the premium shoppers will go elsewhere and stop subsidizing my purchases. Amazon can subsidize the prices, but I suspect quality and selection of staples will go down.
When you say "do well", you mean they're not going to generate enough revenue? Because big apples generally lose quality faster in long-term storage, according to a book I inherited on how to run an orchard, from 1948. :)
Anecdotally, I find that oversize apples are typically less dense.
All I know for sure is that they tasted fresh--dense, crisp, and juicy--and didn't seem to be covered in much, if any, wax. The price partly seemed to reflect an abundance given that we're in apple picking season; and partly reflect their relatively small size, even for galas, and odd coloring--strangely yellowish (I checked the stickers and the labels twice).
Even if you have money, shopping at Whole Foods is foolish. Amazon reduced a fraction of the items prices, they are still heavily over-priced, and the food quality for the price is low. Whole Foods is a grocery store that prices it's food high to attract a certain type of consumer. That's all.
If you want high quality food, I encourage you to visit a local farmer's market. There is probably one close to you every week, or every other week. There are even larger ones or speciality ones less frequently (monthly).
At a farmer's market you'll get high quality produce, fresh that is directly from the farm. All or most of your money will be going to people actually growing or making the food, not a large corporation, food distributor, or Amazon.
I really wish we would just ban grocery stores for good and try to go back to this form of food consumerism.
I'm sure that'll work out great for people who live in poor communities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
You seem to be reductive.
people need affordable supermarkets. this isn't complicated, it's unfortunately just not very profitable to serve these people.
Really, truly what I'm saying is true. For people who don't even have a grocery store, I think things like community gardens (a garden that is shared between a block of neighbors) is a perfectly scalable, healthy and affordable solution.
That's largely bunk - the definition of a 'food desert' is far from what the media would have you believe:
"In the U.S., a food desert consists of a low income census tract residing at least 0.5 miles in urban areas ... from the large grocery store."
Living 0.6 miles from a grocery store != not having a grocery store....
Traveling over a mile to a grocery store is a big deal for somebody without a car -- especially if they're elderly, disabled, or have children.
1. http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defi...
As someone who lives in a big city, grocery stores here are packed at all hours. There will be dozens of checkout lines open going through customers as fast as they can. There are a ton of grocery stores, too, with each one as busy.
Farmer's markets are clearly not as effecient at serving customers as a supermarket, which means they would be even more crowded. We would have to have a LOT more of them to replace all of the supermarkets, and they would take up a lot more space than the current supermarkets to serve the same number of people.
As a busy parent of a toddler, grocery shopping already takes up a lot more time than I want it to. I can't imagine trying to fit the extra time it would take to shop at a farmers market for everything into my schedule.
When we think about making some sort of massive change to the way we live our lives (like everyone doing all shopping at farmer's markets), we have to really think about what it would mean to operate at that scale. What might work great for you as an individual may not work for everyone in the world, if everyone were to change their behavior.
Unless you're buying industrial quantities of food, I doubt a trip to the farmer's market will save you $40. The quality difference is also difficult to quantify. Onions and potatoes from the farmer's market aren't any healthier then onions from the supermarket.
And here's the elephant in the room - at any particular time of year, most of the food that you eat is not in season where you live. If it's not in season, you're not going to get it from your farmer's market (Unless said farmer is reselling it from a wholesaler - which a lot of stalls do.)
Do you spend an hour a week churning butter by hand, or do you pay someone else to do it for you?
By that kind of reasoning, how much money can you save by reducing how much time you sleep by an hour each night?
Or maybe if I add 10 people to your project you'll get it done 10x faster?
After a point, I will absolutely pay $30 to not lose another hour of sleep.
Either way, you're missing the point. Time is money. People spend money to save time, and people spend time to save money. Different people have a different rate at which they'll strongly consider doing one over the other.
For most of us, the amount of money we have is very limited. For all of us, the amount of time we have is very limited. Eventually, we'll all be dead.
Esitmating 1 hour a week, and an average salary of $50, that's an extra $25 per week, or $1300 a year!
Tech analogy: Apple's stuff truly is much more expensive than most other stuff, but not so expensive that it's completely out of reach for upper to middle class incomes.
1. It's a hard life for farmers. To be open for business by 8:30 a.m. for our local gentry, it's necessary to rise at 4 a.m., load up the truck and drive for a couple hours to our town. Some of the smaller-stand operators are on the verge of quitting because the commitment doesn't pay off.
2. Part of shoppers money goes for the farmers' gasoline, travel burden, etc. That's much more intense when food is brought to market inefficiently in many smaller vehicles rather than a single, Interstate-grade truck.
3. Most farmers are trying to move produce at multiple stages of goodness. Yes, there are beautiful peaches at $3.99/pound. There also are squished ones in the mix at times, too, as well as over-ripe ones at $1/pound that the farmers need to sell, too. It's all part of running a store. But someone still has to pick out the good from the not-so-good, and often that's the customer.
Overall, I'm glad farmers' markets exist, and sometimes the goods can be spectacular. But the inefficiencies are too severe for them to take on a dominant role in feeding the USA.
I also do not get the "shop at a farmers market exclusively" line of reasoning. We don't have access to farmer's markets in the winter. That's not really a highly available thing where I live (Michigan). Even when it's summer we still do not have access to all the same foods that are available in a grocery store.
Because everyone here seems to only understand the world through software engineer terms, I'll break it down for you: a distributed system is often very efficient and scalable solution to a supply and demand problem.
Amazon's inability or indifference to combatting counterfeit sellers on their website has completely eroded my trust in eating the food they source.
My observations are 1) my local mom and pop store carries the freshest and cheapest vegetable produce. They are alert to my needs and are doing brisk business with a regular clientele. They source their produce from the central valley ave Sacramento area using a network of independent farms. 2) Costco is great for some produce while making up the true per pound cost for other items e.g. Tomatoes. Additionally I find Costco produce to perish faster. 3) whole foods has dependable produce but at over 50% Mark ups.