Whole Foods Market coming to UK

On 6 June Whole Foods Market, "America's most aggressive and successful "natural" supermarket, is coming to Britain."

Their first store is opening in London. "Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh are next on the list. In Ireland, Dublin is targeted."

Quotes from The Daily Telegraph -- full article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wine/main.jh ... t105.xml#1

The Telegraph highlights the size of the store compared with others "Planet Organic's largest London store is 5,500 sq ft; Fortnum & Mason's recently expanded food floors boast 18,500 sq ft. Whole Foods will be 80,000 sq ft - the size of the new Wembley Stadium" and notes the difficulty it will have to fill the shelves -

"The Kensington store's initial promise was to buy local; the reality is that it can't fill the shelves this way. Its food, organic and otherwise, will now be "regionally" sourced, which means the length and breadth of the British Isles - and the Continent. Add to this certain American brands that have been flown over to make up the shortfall and you have a typically cosmopolitan food hall."

It is planned to open 30-40 stores in Britain "Wherever you live in Britain, if you have a favourite natural food store you should take notice, because not much survives when Whole Foods comes to town. It is a behemoth, to which independent retailers are just so much small fry"

The article calls it a "yellow Pac-Man chomping its way across America" swallowing competition, and notes that "Tesco has impishly trademarked the name "Tesco Wholefoods", while all supermarkets have been frantically sewing up UK organic contracts"

Nothing much yet on their website http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/UK except the boast they "will be the largest food retailer in London
with 80,000 square feet of retail space"

Do I take it they aim to go head to head with supermarkets, rather than farmers markets / greengrocers / farm shops?

By the sound of it I'm not sure whether I'll love or loathe them, but I can see they'll make an impact.

regards

Ian

I guess the idea is that things are already so expensive in the UK that Whole Paycheck's prices won't shock you.

Interesting that they are opening on D-Day.

Ian, they want to be everyone's supermarket of choice, but they fall short on a lot of everyday type items. At least here at the Santa Fe store.

We don't go there much because, as Stuart says, the prices are quite high. We too call it Whole Paycheck.

Cynthia and Stuart
Thanks for this - stuck out in rural Norfolk, I'm sure it we be a long time before we get one here. The rellies in Birmingham area might be interested though.
regards
Ian

On balance, we like them. However we go there to get or look for something we can't find elsewhere and therefore don't drop the whole paycheck.

All the ones we've been to including the new one near us in Portland, ME have good wine selections ranging from cheap to cheeky, and a talking head with some brains in it to go with it.

One's hard to finds are likely to be quite different than another's. On our last trip we found frozen cranberries, not available in any local super; and wild yam soba, as oriental specialties are also hard finds around here.