As it with most of my favorite cookbooks, I picked up my copy of The New Laurel's Kitchen at a thrift store about four years ago. I vividly remember buying it for a buck, because on that same trip I bought a 4 quart slow cooker that was priced at $3.99. I got something of a thrill that I didn't spend more than $5 that day.

Originally self-published in 1976, the revised edition was brought out ten years later by the Running Press. As cookbooks go, this one is an amazing resource. For those of us who are trying to get back to ways of cooking that include making our own yogurt, baking healthy loaves of bread that don't contain high fructose corn syrup and using lots of dried beans and legumes, this is a necessary book to have in your collection. I often turn to my copy when I need reminding as to the best way to cook barley or how to grow sprouts on my dining room window sill.

This book is far more than just a simple cookbook. It also contains sections about how to cook whole foods for children, the elderly, pregnant woman and people who are extremely active as well as offering advice on how to eat healthfully on a budget. It's not glossy, the only illustrations are two-color line drawings, but they are appealing in their simplicity. This is really a good book for those people out there who want to have more control over the foods that they and their families eat and lessen their dependence on pre-processed packaged foods.

Awesome: the idea behind bulk food. Cheaper, more control over the quantity, easy.

Not-so-awesome: the collection and storing of bulk food. Most supermarkets provide plastic bags, which are not only bad for the environment, but are messy to store, can break or leak easily, and typically result in a pile of unusable crumbs.

But a friend of mine has come up with an easy solution that I'm jealous I didn't think of first: she bought a few of these Droppar storage jars (at left) from IKEA (although any small metal or glass jar with a lid would do), and brought them to her local Whole Foods store. The cashier first weighed the jar itself, which she wrote on a piece of tape and placed on the jar lid.

Each time my friend buys in bulk, she simply brings her jar with her, writes the checkout code on a sticker which she keeps on the jar, and brings it to the cashier, who subtracts the weight of the jar and charges her for just the food. Easy, environmentally-friendly, and easy to store when she gets home. (Another idea? Just wash out peanut butter or pasta sauce jars, place stickers on the sides, and reuse those).

Warning: this should work at Whole Foods and Wild Oats, or other similarly-minded food stores, but I don't know if other stores would agree - you'd have to call your local supermarket out find out.

Why would a company CEO go on a financial web site and post about his company under a pseudonym?

That's what the Federal Trade Commission is investigating. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has admitted that it was he who posted under the name "Rahodeb" (an anagram of his wife's name) on Yahoo's financial boards. In fact, he didn't just post about finances and stocks in general, he specifically posted about rumors that Whole Foods might buy Wild Oats. This was in January of 2005. Whole Foods bought Wild Oats a few months ago for $565 million.

Or should I say, "might buy them." The FTC is trying to block the agreement and is using this new info for their case. Mackey insists he did nothing wrong since all of the stuff he talked about was public knowledge and harmless.

[via Boing Boing]

Skyr isn't carried in too many American stores, but the Icelandic yogurt definitely has its fans. It is thicker than conventional yogurt, largely because it is strained, much like Greek yogurt. You are most likely to be familiar with the yogurt if it is carried at your local Whole Foods, where it is packaged into small containers and flavored like conventional yogurts, with berries, vanilla, etc. Despite the generally positive reaction from consumers, Whole Foods no longer promotes the fact that they carry Skyr, or any other Icelandic products, because of the company's offical policy of dissapproval for Iceland resuming commercial whaling last year.

The average consumer, perhaps the average Skyr fan, in the US isn't aware of the whaling issue and because Whole Foods hasn't promoted it, they're not likely to - especially because Whole Foods is planning to stock more Icelandic products this spring. Whole Foods will be carrying Nói Síríus chocolate easter eggs in approximately 70 stores. To entice WF to stock the eggs, Nói Síríus seems to have offered them at almost no cost, as the marketing director of the chocolate company said "There are no profits involved, this is first and foremost a sales experiment." More will be imported next year if they prove popular. Whether Whole Foods will be promoting them now, or in future, is still unknown, though it certainly seems like it would be a good business strategy to promote the products you carry if you're going to carry them at all.

Whole Foods had been expanding breath-takingly fast over the past several years, with new locations - many of which are huge or feature unusual amenities - popping up all over the place. Being everywhere is one way to beat out the competition (think Starbucks), but another way is to buy them up. Whole Foods has just announced that they will be buying Wild Oats Markets, one of their top competitors, for $565 million, with the deal expected to to close over the next few weeks.

Colorado-based Wild Oats has 110 stores in 24 states and British Columbia and has not been doing as well as its rival. Whole Foods has twice the sales per square foot of retail space, though Wild Oats has smaller stores, and recently lost both their chief executive and chief financial officers.

Some stores will be closed and others will be relocated to fit in with existing Whole Foods stores, but Whole Foods feels that they can improve the Wild Oats stores on the whole and "put jet propulsion under [them]" to bring their sales up to Whole Foods levels. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey estimates that it could take two ears to fully integrate the Wild Oats stores

Supposedly, everything is bigger in Texas and up until now, that adage has certainly held true for Whole Foods Market, which has their 80,000-sq. foot flagship store located in Houston. The company is now planning an even larger store for San Jose, California. At 86,000-sq. feet, the store will be the largest Whole Foods in the US and probably will hold the title for some time despite the fact that Whole Foods does seem to love large stores. With restaurants and spas opening inside supermarkets, what was once one-stop-shopping is now a shopping experience.

But is this getting out of hand? How large can a grocery store before it gets too big? This new Whole Foods, which will be located at the intersection of Blossom Hill Road and Almaden Expressway, will take up about 2 acres without including space for loading docks and parking. It's safe to say that it isn't exactly necessary to have a store that large, but do you prefer to seek out the biggest stores for your shopping when given the choice between a larger and smaller store of the same type?

The prevailing food trends that say you should know exactly what you're eating and where it came from. This is generally accepted to mean that you should buy eggs are from free range chickens and beef from grass-fed, hormone-free cows. Whole Foods is reinterpreting that to mean that you should know the farmers who are responsible for producing the eggs, beef and produce that you are purchasing. They're introducing their customers to their producers by putting up pictures of the farmers in stores, which makes the shopping experience sort of like seeing the vendors at a farmer's market without having to interact with them in any way. The idea is not to make the farmers into celebrities, but to make sure that the customers know that they are buying locally and supporting these people by shopping at Whole Foods, not just supporting the store.

Whole Foods is supporting the farmers because it is driving their business, not just because they believe in the cause, but whatever the reason, the movement for buying locally is making a change for small farmers. Some report that nearly all of their products are now sold locally, whether through a venue like Whole Foods or direct to consumers, and that the increased interest in local foods and the willingness of consumers to pay slightly higher prices for them are, in many cases, saving these farms.

Grocery shopping is not usually the activity at the top of the "fun things to do" list, but Whole Foods wants to change your mind about that by making the experience relaxing and pleasurable. The company has just opened The Everyday Spa, a prototype full-service spa, at their Dallas store.

The spa is 4,500-sq. feet and is entirely enclosed in a soundproof section of the store. It offers the same services as other day spas, including a wide variety of skin treatments, massages, nutritionists and "wellness consultants." There is also a "private balcony where lunch is served" and a store that carries most of the skin care products and cosmetics that are currently located in the Whole Body aisle/section of most Whole Foods Markets, in addition to jewelry, shoes and clothing made with organic materials.

Grocery shopping and spa treatments, despite the fact that WF is trying to emphasize the organic connection between the two services at their stores, don't seem like the best matchup. The point of getting a full body massage, for example, is to help you relax and clear your mind, not to think about what to buy for lunch tomorrow. That said, if their prices and services are good, there's no reason to rule out one of their spas if this one is successful and they decide to roll them out to locations across the country.

Animal welfare is clearly a hot topic in the supermarket these days, as anyone can see just by taking a look at all the different types of labels and certifications that are meant to convince us that the animals we are eating led full, happy lives before they became dinner. The current list includes labels such as "free farmed," "certified humane," "cage free" and "free range," among others. Whole Foods is adding a new term to this group: animal compassionate.

"Animal compassionate" sets some of the following standards of care for animals: "Castration of sheep prohibited; electric prod on beef cattle permitted in emergencies; tail docking of pigs not allowed."

But in the end, these labels - many of which are developed by animal welfare groups or, as in this case, the stores that carry the products - are really just another security blanket for consumers who like the idea of an animal playing in a field and looking happy. It makes them feel good, like they're doing the right thing from the animal's perspective. It might also confuse consumers, many of whom already have difficulty choosing between organic, hormone/antibiotic free and grass fed animals.

There are so many food issues to think about when you hit the market to do grocery shopping.  Store brand versus national brand. Sale versus regular. Organic vs conventional. Locally grown vs imported. Every company is promoting at least one thing (sometimes all things) at a time.With organics going mainstream, and organic farms getting larger and more efficient/industrial, more community and eco-conscious people are turning towards supporting local growers and patronizing farmers markets, rather than blindly opting for organics of unknown origin.

Following this trend and keeping itself ahead of the curve, Whole Foods has just pledged to spend an additional $10 million each year to further support locally grown foods. John Mackey one of the co-founders of Whole Foods said that some stores "would use parts of their parking lots on Sundays to host open-air markets for nearby farms and [all] would redouble efforts to buy from local producers."

The question is, will this move encourage you to shop at Whole Foods, knowing that you are more likely to be supporting local growers/producers that you might not otherwise have access to?

Whole Foods markets will no longer sell live lobsters and soft-shelled crabs on the grounds that it is an inhumane practice. The company spent months studying the conditions that lobsters experienced en route from the sea to the shopper. They tried to make the lobsters as comfortable as possible, but ultimately concluded that "they could not ensure the creatures [were] treated with respect and compassion."

Whole Foods pointed to a European study that said lobsters can feel pain like humans and animals, but the scientific community is divided over to what degree a lobster's fairly primitive nervous systems actually feel.

The lobster industry isn't concerned with this decision. 25% of all lobsters are sold live and they feel strongly that consumers who want live lobsters will still seek them out.

PETA and other animal rights groups are thrilled with the decision, but seem to have missed the fact that the market will still carry frozen raw and cooked lobster products. The lobsters are still being killed, but they won't be boiled by Whole Foods shoppers.

Whole Foods is rolling out new ads to emphasize the low priced items they say they've been selling all along, according to an article in the New York Times. Apparently "whole paycheck" has just been hiding their competitively priced light under a bushel. Prices of certain items will now figure prominently in the new ads. According to the NYT article, Business Day ran some price comparisons between Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, a Manhattan Walgreen's and Food Emporium. Kashi cereal and Philadelphia Cream Cheese were both cheaper at Whole Foods. I've done a few informal price comparisons between my local Whole Foods and Publix supermarket and also found that prices on items like Nature's Path cereals (my beloved Optimum Power Breakfast) and Blue Diamond almond milk are generally cheaper at Whole Foods. The ads will run in New York City for the next 10 weeks.

[Image: NYT]

Some of the nation's largest grocery store chains are rushing to introduce their own, in-house line of organic food products. Marketers are hoping that by introducing their own lines consumers who were unable to pay the higher prices for name brands will be more apt to join in on  the organic trend. The giant grocery chain Albertson's will begin its venture with 50 products in the Nature's Best line of organic items. That number will jump to 100 by June and to 300 by the middle of 2007.

Critics of this move are worried that the products will not measure up in quality to such name brands as Horizon or Cascade Valley. Not true, say the chains, they adhere to all the USDA guidelines that are in place to ensure that the true organic nature is achieved by each item.

Last year Whole Foods was the benefactor of the nearly $13 billion Americans annually spend on organic foods and household items. The mainstream grocery chains are hoping to capture some of that market by hosting products that are about 27 percent below those of the name brands.

As Slashfood's Nicole Weston noted earlier in her summary of today's New York Times dining section, California's Sonoma Foie Gras has filed suit against Whole Foods.

The backstory? Last fall, Whole Foods -- clearly feeling the heat from animal rights activists -- issued an ultimatum to Sonoma Foie Gras' processor, Grimaud Farms. Whole Foods gave Grimaud Farms a choice: either stop processing and distributing for Sonoma Foie Gras or stop doing business with Whole Foods. Sonoma Foie Gras, in turn, has dropped a lawsuit on Whole Foods for "intentional interference with contract." 

The repercussions of this case, which comes to court on Friday, may be larger than any single court decision.

While animal rights activists -- who see foie gras as among the cruelest of foods -- have won a few victories (including a Chicago City Council vote last week to ban the sale of foie gras, which Slashfood's Nick Vangoni posted about last week), they may just have woken up a giant.

The Times reports that Hudson Valley Foie Gras, Sonoma Foie Gras, Rougie (Canada) and D'Artagnan have teamed up to form the North American Foie Gras Producers Association.  Their first act was to hire Ag Associates, a lobbying group.

Think foie gras is cruel? Wait 'til you see lobbyists in action.

 

While Whole Foods market already has a foot in the door on the grocery market in the United Kingdom, due to its ownership of the Fresh and Wild market chain, there are no Whole Foods stores in England. Yet.

Whole Foods is planning to open a 75,000-square foot British flagship store on the Kensington High Street in London next year. While that is still some time away, commentators are already speculating as to how the US chain will fare overseas. It seems that some feel that the chain will not do well in the competitive market there, but signs point to the success of the American store because of the poor track record of British markets in the United States. The American market is cutthroat, possibly moreso than the UK's.

Look for the opening in early 2007. If all goes well, the chain hopes to expand into continental Europe in the future.