Black widow spider. Photo: Ian Waldie, Getty Images.

Talk about sour grapes!

Toronto resident Brett James was reaching into his refrigerator to grab his wife a snack when he found a black widow spider lurking under the bag of grapes he'd purchased at the local Whole Foods Market, the Toronto Star reports. He thinks the poisonous spider came in with the grapes.

"When I lifted the bag, the spider was underneath, just sitting on top of another bag in the refrigerator," James tells Slashfood. "I wasn't sure exactly what it was, and I had heard stories before, so something was in the back of my head that it could be serious."

He lifted the spider out of the fridge on a paper towel and put it in a plastic container. After poking around on the Internet, he said he identified it as a black widow, a spider whose venom can cause muscle cramps, tremor and chest pain.

After college, I took a job bussing tables at a very high-end restaurant attached to a very expensive country inn near my hometown. It was the kind of place where you had to stand with your arms spread at the beginning of a shift and submit to having the maitre d' inspect your cuffs and the knot in your tie (even women had to wear ties).

I'd been working there for a few weeks when I noticed that employees were throwing away massive platters of food from the wedding buffets that took place nearly every weekend afternoon -- I'm talking untouched trays of smoked salmon, artichoke hearts, blinis with caviar and mini lemon souffles. I also noticed that the wait staff would pour the remaining pitchers of fresh-squeezed orange juice straight down the sink after brunch. Finally, I asked the head waiter why we didn't just save the food to eat at employee mealtime.

"Because, if we allowed employees to eat leftover food, pretty soon you'd all be eating whatever you wanted straight out of the fridge," he told me sniffily.

What, like untrained dogs?! I gave my two weeks notice the next day.

I was reminded of that incident when I read this New York Times post, about a man fired from Whole Foods for trying to save and eat a tuna fish sandwich that was about to be thrown away. Whole Foods claimed that the man's behavior was "misconduct," which means, in addition to having lost his job, he'd be denied unemployment benefits. The man, Ralph Reece, challenged the misconduct ruling and won.

Good for him, I say. Not only is keeping employees from eating leftover food degrading and wasteful, the "misconduct" charges were, according to Reece's lawyer, souped up in order to save Whole Foods money for not having to pay unemployment. And this from a company that is supposed to be one of the best places in America to work!

As anyone who has ever entered a Whole Foods knows, it is painfully easy to spend money in that store. I often walk in with budget-friendly list and a promise to myself not to impulse shop. However, the sight of the produce section lulls me into a fugue state that I don't snap out of until I'm paying for my purchases, horrified that I've taken such a big bite out of my checking account but unable to do anything to alter course.

It appears that the tightening economy is starting to hurt Whole Food's coffers, as they've issued a web coupon in the hopes of luring people back into their stores. If you spend at least $25, this coupon will save you $5. Not a bad deal at all. You can find the coupon here (don't try to print the image that accompanies this post, it's not the entire coupon).

[via Eat]

We've heard a lot about reusable grocery bags this year. Not only did Whole Foods stop supplying plastic grocery bags on Earth Day this year, but the city of San Francisco banned them as well.

There is certainly no shortage of reusable shopping bags out there, but Whole Foods is rolling out one with some celebrity power behind it. The organic grocery store chain has teamed up with Sheryl Crow, who designed the new bag. The bag features the design of a tree with some of Sheryl's words on it and is made from 80% post consumer product.

I think I'll check it out next time I'm in Whole Foods. What do you think?

[via Just Food]

As of now, it's Pomegranate located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The 20,000 square feet of shopping space includes aisles full kosher gourmet foods. An article from New York magazine calls Pomegranate a "kosher gourmet megastore." The supermarket seems to be a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

Unlike other specialty markets, Pomegranate caters to the thousands of Orthodox Jewish families living in New York City. The store has three kitchens: dairy, meat, and parve (fish, vegetables, fruit and grains). Each has its own on-duty full-time rabbi. Customers can choose from a rich selection of freshly baked challah and homemade cheeses to aged prime beef-rib steaks to an olive bar and sushi bar. The gourmet food market is an obvious business trend. Is the kosher version of Whole Foods the new trend?

I live in Brooklyn, not far from Pomegranate, and I see several smaller gourmet kosher markets on Kings Highway. The prices are not cheap. So, I do not think that Pomegranate will have a hard time competing with existing stores. You can now visit the supermarket that's located on Coney Island Avenue at the corner of Avenue L.

This past Saturday's New York Times had an intriguing article on how Whole Foods is trying to overcome its nickname, Whole Paycheck. Considering the high food prices sweeping the entire nation, this attempt is crucial for the company's survival. Since its financial peak in 2006, Whole Foods' stock has dropped more than 70 percent. The market for organic foods and specialty foods is in trouble.

A report from TNS Retail Forward produced a survey last month that shows that 20 percent of shoppers have altered where they purchase groceries because of the economy. To make matters worse for Whole Foods, market researching firms, like the Hartman Group, say that consumers are less interested in organic foods.

In this current economic environment, what is Whole Foods doing to change its image as an overpriced grocery store?

1. Offering more discounts
2. Increasing lower-priced store brands
3. Advertising products they sell at a good value
4. Organizing budget-focused store tours
   

Do you think Whole Foods will be able to suppress its nickname Whole Paycheck?

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.