Is Whole Foods Treating Vendors Like Tony Soprano Treats His Working Girls?
NBN is hearing more and more stories about manufacturer dealings with Whole Foods corporate and frankly we’re wondering if the revolutionary retailer is acting more like a desperate Mafioso. One who is in need of lots of cash to keep from getting ‘hit’ by a mob called Wall Street. For years folks have wondered if […]
Whole Foods Buys Wild Oats for $565 Million
While here at NBN we’ve been predicting the sale of Wild Oats for more than year, last week, when we wrote “sooner or later some mid-size conventional chain will be more than happy (desperate, really) to buy Oats for top dollar little did we guess that the buyer was going to be none other than […]
Whole Foods, United Natural, Get Happy–Will Manufacturers Feel the Pain
NBN remembers the old days back when we were the grocery buyer for a small Connecticut independent (actually, in those days all the stores were independent). Cornucopia was our primary distributor but we ordered from Stow Mills and Tree of Life in the Northeast. No doubt increased consolidation offers both retailers and distributors advantages, allowing […]
Whole Foods Just Says No to Live Lobsters
In a move consistent with WFM’s visionary John Mackey’s vegan lifestyle Whole Foods Market will discontinue selling live lobsters. While animal rights activist applaud the move, NBN wonders if more than concern for animals inspired it.As a native New Englander NBN has always been mortified at the prospect of boiling those poor creatures alive. Mortified […]
Wal-Mart’s Organic Ambition Shakes Up The Natural Products Expo
Giant Retailer Rattles Some Nerves, Has Others Dreaming of Gold While we didn’t get to talk to any of the Wal-Mart buyers that were at the show and who everyone was looking for, we do know one thing: Wal-Mart was on everywhere lips at the Expo in Anaheim, spoken with trepidation from some, and excitement […]
Slate Magazine Looks at Whole Foods
Article Points Out Image Isn’t Everything and Then Gets It All Wrong In one the better pieces on Whole Foods Market, Slate looks at Whole Foods phenomena and asks the question is WFM really all that wholesome? While we wondered whether the story would be just another snaky complaint about high prices and fancy gourmet […]
Memories of Mrs. Gooch’s
I remember it vividly. My shock and awe at seeing a store like none I had ever seen before. It was huge, bright and packed floor to ceiling with nothing but the natural products that back in the 1980’s were only seen in little 1,000 and 2,000 square foot stores that were often hard to […]
Whole Foods battles Wild Oats in Louisville
While the 2nd annual Levine Thanksgiving family reunion was absent of any fights, in fact it was filled with fond reminiscences of old friends, favorite places, family pets and resulted in nothing more harmful than falling asleep in front of the television and some serious overeating (more turkey please…damn that stuffing is good, would you […]
NYC Union Expands Campaign Against Whole Foods
‘Right Wing’ Views Of WFM CEO To Be Publicized If you read NBN regularly, you know we love calling Whole Foods, America’s glitziest non-union grocer. When WFM’s second store launched on Union Square the site of many important battles in America’s labor movement, that the ghost’s of labor past were likely shaking their heads. Well […]
Wild Oats Stock Gains Amidst Analyst Upgrade
Are California Store Sales Enough Reason for Hope? Wild Oats stock rose 7% on Friday on word that RBC Capital Markets graded Whole Foods poor stepsister to outperform based on their expected growth in sales for Southern California stores. Quarterly results will be released August 4th and while NBN hopes that Wild Oats stocks remains […]
