Nixta Sinks

"Here's a secret - pick up something and tell the attendant you're not sure you'll like it. They'll write on the label, and - guess what! - when you get to the checkout, they'll give it to you for free!"

Ah, old people!

A well-researched piece in the Guardian about the Whole Foods ethos and their impending store in Kensington (which I have my doubts about).

"Wal-Mart started to stock organic foods - though most are hidden away in a weirdo's corner"

In New York, there was no single choice for decent or indeed organic food until Whole Foods turned up a year ago. Before that, the best choice was either one of the markets (Union Square has a good one, maybe the only accessible one) or FreshDirect.com, which introduced a remarkably successful model, but one that does rely on a very densely packed population with good roads. Even London's population-spread is really too thin and its road network too poor to support it (individual Waitrose stores do delivery and team up with the hugely ineffectual Ocado for more dispersed delivery (yes, you do deliver to my postcode, you freaks), but all at inconvenient times and intervals and not a touch on Freshdirect). Now we have many Whole Foods stores, and a the very crowded Trader Joe's (thankfully, since it has sucked the crowds of hippies out of Whole Foods). The old supermarkets here are having to clean up their act rapidly, which is a good thing - they were stale and dirty, as was their stock. Kind of an old-people's home for food.

It's not too late for Whole Foods to try to reverse the increased dependency on the centralised distribution, and the Guardian article implies it's trying to, but even considering the current state of affairs, it's better than most supermarkets in this country for quality of food. Say what you want, before Whole Foods, even Sainsbury's beat most US supermarkets and I'd argue that Whole Foods will find stiffer competition in the already organic-savvy UK.

Whole Foods has the capital to make the Kensington store survive, but again we come back to the transportation issue, and it will surely be extraordinarily difficult to stock with reasonably local foods and keep people coming in the long-term. It will give the other supermarkets a kick in the arse though, and that's never a bad thing.