<p>Since Wegman’s opened locally, I don’t go to Whole Foods. I won’t buy seafood anyplace else. They have things I just can’t get other places and, if you’re careful, you can save money there. The Top Care brand is significantly cheaper than the brand name products and less than the store brand at my regular supermarket.</p>
<p>Mixed quality. I bought a big bag of their 356 frozen spinach, and well over 1/4 of it was nothing but stems, without even a bit of leaf attached. Decided to give it one more try (Sucker!) but same thing. Never again.</p>
<p>The prepared foods/salad bar is OK, as long as you remind yourself that you are paying by the pound. If you need a little of something as a side dish, it’s not bad. Just stick to things that are lightweight. If you buy something heavy or wet (my husband once bought mashed potatoes - yikes!) you’re going to pay a fortune.</p>
<p>The Whole Foods in our area does carry a lot of local products (including mine). The 365 Organic Pacific Rim Coffee is a great deal, as are their sausages when on sale and the bulk stuff is well priced.</p>
<p>We don’t have Trader Joe’s or Costco here, unfortunately. Just Shaws and Hannaford, Sam’s Club and BJ’s.</p>
<p>What/where is Wegmans??</p>
<p>In my area, at least, Whole Foods is known for carrying meat that is ‘certified humane.’ It costs more, but considering some of the horrors that livestock are subjected to in the regular production process, I think it’s worth it. </p>
<p>Although, in my area, the PCC chain also carries certified humane meats. That’s where I shop.</p>
<p>Wegman’s is the absolute best grocery store I’ve ever been in. They are out east. I only get to go in one when visiting my daughter in Pennsylvania. I would love to see them expand to the midwest, but I doubt that will happen. </p>
<p>Whole Food - funny this should be brought up. The closest one to us is also about 45 minutes away, but last week when I was out driving around for work, I happened to drive by one, and since it was the end of the day and I was on my way home, I decided to stop in. My biggest frustration at this time of the year, is variety of good fruit. Our local grocers supply of quality fruit (other than apples and bananas) is abyssmal. So at Whole Foods, I bought some blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and grapes. I just sat down to eat the grapes when I opened this thread (I’ve already gone through the raspberries and blackberries), and continue to be very pleasantly surprised by what I got last Friday. Yes, it was expensive, but worth every penny for me at this time of the year when I crave those fruits. Next time I might buy some of the already-cut-up watermelon. So, yes, I will stop by again if I pass by it, and may make a special trip if I’m in the mood for those fruits and it’s not summer around here (I really like the quality of Costco’s fruit, but they don’t have the variety this time of year).</p>
<p>Oh, lspf72, there’s a Wegman’s in Ithaca, NY. It’s a fantastic grocery store with an incredible deli section – the place to go if you’re looking to stock up for a great picnic!</p>
<p>I don’t usually buy meat or chicken, but when I do, Whole Foods all the way. It’s well worth the extra cost. I think meat/chicken ought to be an expensive luxury.</p>
<p>Rodney – I agree with you. If it weren’t for our local Whole Foods, I don’t know what my dh would eat. Yes, the typical groceries carry <em>some</em> G-F food but they only started after the Whole Foods came to town. Before that, nothing except what we could find by poring over the labels. Now he can walk in, pick up a loaf of his bread, buy a entree or a dessert and know he won’t spend 3 days feeling awful because he ate what he oughtn’t. </p>
<p>And their pre-made roast Chicken is the best of all the ones we’ve tried…and it’s G-F which a lot of them are not. </p>
<p>It is not a cheap store by any means but the overall quality is excellent. Furthermore, they carry lines of ‘green’ cleaners, cosmetics, baby stuff, etc. which I can only find on the internet. All the goodness…none of the S&H costs!</p>
<p>It’s near my yoga class…so I stop by once or twice per week. Love their salad bar. The meats are top-notch (although very expensive). I love the boneless turkey breast. I can also find certain items there that are hard to find elsewhere (soy products for example). But overall, I agree that they’re too expensive. Trader Joe’s has MUCH better deals. But meat and produce are not that great at TJ’s - no organic strawberries lately for example.<br>
We have a Wegmans about a half hour away and another is scheduled to open sometime this year - much closer. Can’t wait…really love that store but it’s too much of a hike right now.</p>
<p>Others have responded to the Wegman’s question, but it has everything including a Asian/Indian buffet and fresh fruit/veggie buffet. When it first opened here, I never went because I was so overwhelmed by it and I thought I would never know where anything is. When my D is home to visit, she always wants halibut and I have not found better anywhere. Their scallops are really good too. I’ll pay extra to walk through a seafood department and not smell rotten fish. I can’t get near most grocery store’s fish departments without feeling sick. Fish is not supposed to smell like fish.</p>
<p>barron’s-- I used to walk to that funky little store in Austin while in grad school; lived only a few houses away. Boy, does your comment bring back memories!! </p>
<p>Fast forward to current life: We don’t have a Whole Foods near enough to us to shop on a regular basis, but there is a Fresh Market nearby. It is too expensive to buy everything there, but has some nice meat items and great vegetables. I like some of the baked items too.</p>
<p>Armadillo World Headquarters–anyone?</p>
<p>I don’t go there too often, but it’s the only place i can find very much humanely raised, non-factory farmed meat, which is important to me. Shop Rite has some, but not much variety. Trader Joes is much farther away, but again, very little choice in meats I will buy. We don’t eat meat often, but when we do, it’s WF that is most likely to have what I’m looking for. I get our free range turkey there every Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>There are a whole lot of reasons I’ll make the trek to TJ’s, but meat is not one of them.</p>
<p>Whole Foods carries LOTS of gluten-free products I can’t find at other stores. That’s the only reason I ever go there (which isn’t often, anyway). Otherwise it’s just too expensive for everyday grocery shopping.</p>
<p>Whole Foods is a great store here. If I truly subscribed to the organic food way of life, I would have bitten the financial bullet and shopped there. I enjoy going to our local store, but it isn’t worth the price for us to do our shopping there. I buy our organic things in Mrs Green’s Market which is not even close to WF in terms of amenities and selection, but I can just pick up what I want and get out of there without the temptation to overspend. It’s also a small store, so it takes little time to grab a few items. </p>
<p>If those who want those great organic foods are serious about their diets, they should support WF or it is going to go under. Many Europeans I know here shop there and feel that the food is priced fairly because it is more like what they are accustomed to paying. Our food is very inexpensive here in the US. I am amazed at how inexpensive the meats are, in particular. When I make the effort and plan, which I have been doing this past year, I can feed our family well with nice meals for very little money. By cutting out a lot of the more prepared foods, I can do well. However, WF would bring the costs way up there even if I prepared foods more the way other countries do. My kids were shocked at how little the Japanese eat when we visited there.</p>
<p>We used to shop there much more but have found that over the years, the Costco in our area has added different organic produce (same mesclun mix as WF but at 1/3 to 1/2 the price), organic chicken, milk, etc. and Costco is getting a greater share of our wallet. Plus, the non-organic fruits at Costco (blackberries, blueberries, oranges, grapefruits) are usually so good that I buy tons so that the teenagers will eat them and not junk food (even good junk food like Trader Joe’s burritos, which is unlimited supply in our downstairs freezer).</p>
<p>I do most of my grocery shopping at Costco, although I do check the circulars for all of the local grocery chains and supplement my shopping at those stores when the specials are good. I don’t shop at Whole Foods – the prices are absurd, but I do like Wegman’s when things are on sale. I should also note that the U.S. has the safest, most abundant, varied and inexpensive food supply in the world. My daughter, who is getting her undergraduate degree in animal science at one of the nation’s top colleges of agriculture, says that “organic” food is largely hype. I agree. Whole Foods is more about marketing and presentation than anything else – you can buy quality groceries at any number of competing chains for a lot less money.</p>
<p>I have been going to PCC since the 70’s, but I mostly go to Ballard Market.
Whole Foods is just too big to be efficent for me to get through- but they do have a good HABA selection.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/[/url]”>http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/</a></p>
<p>I have found that some regular prices at Wegmans rival Sam’s Club. The blueberries were the same price this summer and they were domestically grown at Wegmans. I eat so many blueberries that I prefer to not buy ones from Chile - concerns about pesticide regulation.</p>