What’s Next After Whole Foods?

Published on Wednesday, January 5, 2011, by Lessley Anderson / Edit Post

Grocery shopping, like laundry, showering, clipping your nails, and calling your mom, is one of those things you have to do constantly, and usually it's a drag. Mainstream grocery stores often seem like enormous oceans of missed opportunity: vast aisles filled with gross, corn-syrup-laden products, produce departments that seem like afterthoughts, sullen employees. I have a love-hate relationship with Whole Foods (see "10 Reasons Why Whole Foods Is Annoying"). But I know why it's a Godsend for many food-lovers: It offers a full spectrum of products a Michael-Pollan-name-dropper type might desire, from organic vegetables and dried beans to luxury nonessentials like barrel-aged beer and fancy cheese. And it does so in a spalike, tastefully designed environment that doesn't make you feel feel as if you're doing a chore.

The success of Whole Foods and similarly Trader Joe's speaks volumes about the demand for alternative grocery shopping experiences from a public that's looking for health, convenience, and a "fun" brand they can identify with. What always surprises me is that there aren't more alternatives out there.

An article by Frank Bruni in yesterday's New York Times profiles a new "temporary" restaurant called What Happens When, where diners set their places from cutlery drawers under each table, and the bar is a mobile cart with only five wines and a handful of spirits. The latest example of the new nontraditional approach to dining out, which includes pop-ups, food carts, and underground sandwich delivery, What Happens When underscores just how radical and entrepreneurial the restaurant industry has become.

So when can we expect to be blown away by similarly cool new grocery concepts?

CNN's Eatocracy recently covered a new website from the Netherlands called Tweetjemee, where ordinary people can sell food they've cooked. They include a picture of the item, the price, and a pickup time, and users can search by type of food or neighborhood. "Sometimes diners are invited into the chef’s house to enjoy the meal in the comfort of their kitchen," writes Eatocracy.

This concept intrigues me: It's reminiscent of RelayRides, the new Google-backed competitor to Zipcar, where ordinary people can put their automobile up for rental and specify when it's available, and the company takes a cut. We're in the middle right now of a boom in a DIY cottage foods industry. Like the ’70s when a massive wave of people were making macramé owl planters and copper-enameled earrings, now people are making jam and Kombucha, and entertaining fantasies or downright trying to make a career out of selling it. Why couldn't a service like Tweetjemee start in the U.S.? Or a bartering-based peer-to-peer concept? In today's crappy economy, I'll trade my growlers of home-brew for your urban chicken eggs, and we'll text each other about the pickup time and place with our Droids.

Another cool idea is Three Stone Hearth in Berkeley, California: a partially volunteer-run community kitchen that prepares a weekly changing menu following the dietary vision of the Weston A. Price Foundation. That means lots of pickled vegetables like sauerkraut, bone-broth-based soups and stews, and yogurt cheeses and eggy pies. You can check out what they have and order what you want online, then either pick it up or have it delivered to your door for an extra fee, if you live in one of a few cities. The foods are packaged in homey Mason jars. A friend of mine who works full time and has a small child says she loves the service, because, rather than feeling like she's buying a bunch of Lean Cuisines, she's getting the type of food she'd make for her family, if she had the time.

There are potential customers for more schemes like this, and there are potential sellers/workers/cooks. So where's the hot grocery action?

Image source: Flickr member ciao_yvon under Creative Commons

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  • My local Whole Foods store can't even get the Whole Foods concept right, so we're not even to the "beyond Whole Foods" stage yet. It is small. Cramped. With a very limited selection and always out of something, e.g. limes, lemons, key limes, lamb chops, calves liver, skirt steak, scallions, mint, marjoram, on and on. Worst store ever. (Miami Beach / South Beach).

  • A friend who was close to Sam Walton, who, for better or worse built a retail business that changed the world took my friend to task one day when they went in to a competitors place and my friend said "This place seems like an enormous ocean of missed opportunity: vast aisles filled with gross, corn-syrup-laden products, produce departments that seem like afterthoughts, sullen employees."

    Mr....+READ

    A friend who was close to Sam Walton, who, for better or worse built a retail business that changed the world took my friend to task one day when they went in to a competitors place and my friend said "This place seems like an enormous ocean of missed opportunity: vast aisles filled with gross, corn-syrup-laden products, produce departments that seem like afterthoughts, sullen employees."

    Mr. Walton said: find the one thing they do really well and learn from that, don't focus on all the stuff they do wrong. My point is that I find the grocery experience to be one of exploration: often you can find one section in a grocery store where the product is good, or at least interesting. Sometimes they stock a brand or a product that is unusual. I remember at one grocery store that was nothing special there was a guy who made his own seaweed ricepaper and sold it as a diet snack; at a small grocer nearby if you know when the crabs are coming in to the seafood counter they are wonderful.

    This writer has a bad attitude- I think it is an adventure to find new places and purveyors- it always pays to dig a little to "find the good stuff."-COLLAPSE

  • The funky butchers, the hip fishmongers, the co-ops, and the celebrity chef approved charcuterie are all in the $3500 a month for a 2 bedroom apartment neighborhoods. Everything has to be trendy. Even the Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are in the "cool neighborhoods." I don't want trends or concept. I want quality, value, and convenience. I can educate myself on what to and not to purchase

    I want...+READ

    The funky butchers, the hip fishmongers, the co-ops, and the celebrity chef approved charcuterie are all in the $3500 a month for a 2 bedroom apartment neighborhoods. Everything has to be trendy. Even the Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are in the "cool neighborhoods." I don't want trends or concept. I want quality, value, and convenience. I can educate myself on what to and not to purchase

    I want a supermarket I can walk or drive to, that is clean, and takes my coupons. I'll celebrate the 40 cent pasta on sale during ShopRite's "Can-Can Sale," A&P's $1.99 Perdue chicken, Key Food's 10 for $2 yogurt, and yes Whole Foods for 2 for $5 Wolfgang Puck Stock. I'm also lucky I live in a neighborhood where there are hundreds of little ethnic groceries that I can get whatever specialty items I made need. Unfortunately, it's not a neighborhood that is deemed happening enough by AM NY or The NY Times for a farmer's market.

    As for Frank Bruni he is paid to look for the next food trend. I'm not.-COLLAPSE

  • Despite the best efforts of the Bloomberg administration, New York still has an amazing food culture. Plenty of little groceries, butchers, fishmongers, etc., plus a great farmers' market system, and depending on the neighborhood some nice food coops. I very rarely buy anything at Whole Foods or at Trader Joe's, not really even out of any kind of principle but just because it is an INCREDIBLE...+READ

    Despite the best efforts of the Bloomberg administration, New York still has an amazing food culture. Plenty of little groceries, butchers, fishmongers, etc., plus a great farmers' market system, and depending on the neighborhood some nice food coops. I very rarely buy anything at Whole Foods or at Trader Joe's, not really even out of any kind of principle but just because it is an INCREDIBLE chore to shop at either place compared to almost anyplace else. Supermarkets like Trade Fair and Key Food are relaxing by comparison.-COLLAPSE

  • I personally prefer European-style grocery stores. Those local Polish/Russian/Greek spots with the imported goods and fruit-market produce.

    Just outside of Chicago in Niles is Fresh Farms. I generally shop there because they have good produce, freshly-baked bread, a beautiful deli, and they butcher their own meat. Love it, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

    There's loads of these kinds of...+READ

    I personally prefer European-style grocery stores. Those local Polish/Russian/Greek spots with the imported goods and fruit-market produce.

    Just outside of Chicago in Niles is Fresh Farms. I generally shop there because they have good produce, freshly-baked bread, a beautiful deli, and they butcher their own meat. Love it, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

    There's loads of these kinds of grocery stores out there.-COLLAPSE