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January 17, 2008
I'm moving in with Whole Foods
I love Whole Foods. I want to marry it.
More specifically, I love the Whole Foods flagship store at 6th and Lamar in Austin, Texas. I've dated its cousins in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but Mr. Flagship is a hunk. Let's just call him Mr. F.
My affair with Mr. F began innocently enough: a quick lunch here and there. Then it blossomed into quickie and not-so-quickie dinners, 3-4 times per week. Smitten.
My infatuation now potent, I did all of my Christmas
shopping there; lead-free toys for the nieces and nephews and care
boxes of Austin-made food for everyone else. "Lifestyle brand" is tossed around more than most salads, but Mr. F defines the term. Utility? Sure. Convenience? Check. But we're talking endorphins here. To me, that's lifestyle brand.
The smitten mind tends to formulate irrational ideas, and I joined the club like a character on General (Supermarket) Hospital: What if I ate every meal at Mr. F's Whole Foods for an entire week? Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Never eat the same thing twice, like a coupla hormone-crazed kids. Hell, I'd practically move in. Really get to know Mr. F. Maybe keep a change of clothes there, you know? What would that be like?
First, a few background notes about the hunky Flagship. Perched directly below company headquarters, he's 80,000 square feet of brawn, yet sensitive and fun. An amusement park for food. He is Whole Foods Mecca. He's the model store for the future.
He (yes, the store is a he) houses four mini-restaurants: Italian, seafood, BBQ, and raw/vegan. He has a metrosexual side, too; a sushi bar near the front right next to the pizza station. Of course, Mr. F built an authentic stone hearth oven to cook the pizzas. More urbane than a black leather couch, boys.
I'm a sucker for Mr. F's three beverage bars, too -- coffee, wine and smoothies. He makes me downright Pavlovian in Candy Island, or the gelato bar, or the roasted nuts stand. He's practical-yet-upscale in the prepared foods section, with his fancy lump-crab cakes, cranberry cous cous and teriyaki sweet potatoes. With seating for indoor or outdoor dining (featuring a gurgling creek), free wi-fi and a continuous 80's soundtrack, Mr. F has built Hef's Grotto, minus the nudity.
So, for one, food-driven week, I was dough to Mr. F's expert rolling pin. I ate a lot. I ate things I'd otherwise never give a second look. My week wasn't Oprah-transformational (I didn't cry), but we bonded.
I learned four things along the way, too:
1. Cater to the niche, baby.
In 1978, John Mackey opened a small, vegetarian grocery store in Austin. He was a part of his own niche: people who craved natural, healthy foods. His inspiration? A vegeterian co-op. Also, it had cute girls.
But living his niche paid off. Mackey eventually combined forces with friends who were operating other vegetarian and organic stores in Austin and launched Whole Foods in 1980. He's been running it ever since. Organic food may have started as a tiny beacon in the world of corporate farming but for nearly 30 years, Whole Foods stayed true to the niche. Maybe nurtured it, too.
Now, the niche is a global trend. By 2009, it's expected that 170 million American and European citizens will swear allegiance to all things organic.
Not everything Whole Foods sells is good for you, but it is organic. For instance, you won't find artificial sweeteners in Mr. F's coffee bar. Go ahead and pout, Splenda and Equal fans, but Mr. F lives by principle.
2. Business is theater.
For a country that exports ginormous amounts of culture, too many American businesses are culture-less shlubs. Sigh. Not Mr. Flagship. When he debuted in 2005, he set the stage. Literally. Pizza makers flip dough high above their heads. Fish mongers throw fish across the seafood counter, just like at Pike Place. It's touristy. It's theater. It's Disneyworld. Mr. F is Marlon Brando (the young version) to nearly everyone else's Bill Belichick.
I wish I'd been here for Mr. F's launch party in 2005 because I would have joined the 3,000 other people who paid $25 (to benefit the local public radio station) just to be among the smitten. I would have danced with the hipsters in the upstairs plaza who were getting funky with the band. I know, it's a freakin' supermarket. But that's the idea. They don't do this at Piggly Wiggly, honey.
3. Hire for attitude, train for skill.
I met many of Mr. F's food bunnies during my infatuation week. I must have looked lost one day in the bath and body aisle because an employee asked if I needed help. Try that at Home Depot and you'll stay lost for a week.
Curtis, the chef at the BBQ mini-restaurant, took pity on my dining-for-one status during one dinner visit and with twangy expertise, explained how meats are smoked in the store. He told me a story of how he special-smoked a prime rib for a couple's Roshashana celebration. The next day, the couple led a small brigade of friends and family directly to Curtis' station, pointed at him, and yelled, "That's the man who smoked our prime rib!" Before he knew it, Curtis was a rock star.
Another day, I bonded with Emily, the chef at the vegetarian/raw bar, about our favorite foods and being new to Austin. She'd moved here from New Orleans after Katrina. She got emotional talking about how much Austin means to her and how her family is proud of her work. We shared a moment.
Other food bunnies told me they love to rotate among stations. It keeps them sharp. Kyle, the employee pictured below, was generously patient helping me pick a dessert one day. Those who've dined with me know I like to take my time deciding. I'm a woman, so sue me.
4. Let fans spread the word digitally.
Every hunk has a flaw. Here's one of Mr. F's: no pictures or videos inside the store. It's a strict policy.
I'm grateful to Mr. F's handlers in corporate PR kindly giving me a green light to photograph my week-long lovefest. Every day, I picked up a media badge at the front desk. That didn't stop employees, sometimes herds of them, from accosting me (politely, usually) when I whipped out my D40 Nikon to snap a picture of some sexy cous cous. Clearly, Mr. F has flogged employees to keep the store camera-free.
Whole Foods says it must be draconian about photography lest competitors steal its ideas. But this is where I gently suggest Mr. F to update his haircut. In today's digital society, 70% of new mobile phones have cameras. Go to Flickr and YouTube and you'll see plenty of photos and videos from people who've documented their way through the store's aisles without resorting to corporate-level espionage. They can't steal your culture, which is your real advantage.
Mr. F, I love you, but I hope you'll understand: smitten fans and tourists want to capture their moment at Mecca. They want to post their photographic momentos to their blog, their Facebook account or jeez, I don't know, their scrapbooks. Can you imagine going to Disneyworld and being told to put away your camera? As a media monolith, Disney isn't bashful about protecting its intellectual property. But it understands the power of a captured moment, and how that power spreads when it's shared. You'll find at 185,000 photos of Disneyworld on Flickr.
Whole Foods takes in a jazzy $2.6 billion a quarter, all from word of mouth, you big lunk, so "sorry, you can't take photos here" succeeds in making people feel bad. Even with my press badge, I was pissed after intervention number 20 or so. Jerk!
See my Flickr photo set here of every single meal.
Despite the photo paranoia, my week at Whole Foods was a fun fling. Tried new foods. Met new people. It was fulfilling.
Too fulfilling. Jeezus, I gained about five pounds.
UPDATE: In the comments, Peggy Z. asks how much I spent during my Whole Foods week. The total cost of the week's meals was $153.78, which averages out to about $10 per meal.
Other blogs that reference I'm moving in with Whole Foods:
Thanks for the food-inspired journalism, Jackie. I've always wondered about their no-camera policy. To be honest, if I saw customer photos of how amazing the place is, I'd probably be more likely to visit. If a company really wants to steal their ideas, couldn't they just visit the store?
And like you said, there are a lot of intangibles at play for Whole Foods. A sexy salad bar only gets you so far. Besides, imitation is the highest form of flattery ;-)
I fell in love with Whole Foods when they opened their store on P St., NW in Washington DC, just a few blocks from my house at the time. Not only was the store beautiful (we called it "The Temple of Food") it was very much a meeting spot in our pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. Plus... they opened it when the neighborhood was still in transition, and I think they played a big role in the economic development of the area.
Sadly, the store in central Houston is horribly cramped and so I find myself less in love with them and more likely to go to Central Market. Which raises an interesting point - when a chain has created a great experience, how does it cope with some of its less desirable properties? They certainly don't want to abandon inside the loop Houston, but the store is just not up to their standards. (They are building some gigantic multi-block village of food over near the Galleria, but there are a whole boatload of traffic and accessibility issues there.)
Landmark Theaters has a similar problem - the theaters they build themselves are palaces, but I've been to some where they've bought an older property, and it is, shall we say, less of a wonderful moviegoing experience.
My initial thought was to write, "COME ON! WHOLE FOODS IS SO FIVE YEARS AGO! IT'S A CORPORATE BASTION! SUPPORT SOME LOCAL BUSINESSES!"
However, I read your article, and it was a cogent of analysis of their success, one of the most readable articles about business I've read in a while.
Thank you!
(I think I'm also a little irate because my city, Stamford CT, is trying to put in a Whole Foods around the corner from me. Cool, I'm a health nut, but the intersection is already messy, and one trip to the store in Greenwich CT proves what a traffic mess a popular store can create if not done properly.)
While I won't ocmment on Whole Foods (I am less enamored with them than I used to be in the past), I can certainly appreciate the difference between a flagship store and its little siblings. REI has an amazing flagship, two-story, expansive store with not only a huge selection of gear but an indoor climbing wall (to test your gear), and indoor hiking track (to test your great), and onsite bicycle repair. The cafe there is nice, as is the kids playground.
It's made shopping on its little siblings almost unbearable!
I too love Whole Foods. Whenever I go in there, it's usually just for one or two things but I inevitably get sucked in and spend way more than I wanted. Which is VERY easy to go, because man that store is expensive! I love the place, but stuff that you can find at a run-of-the-mill grocery store always costs more at Whole Foods. Too bad, because they've got great stuff!
Whole Foods is great, but just wait until you visit a Wegmans! [ http://www.wegmans.com ]
Jackie,
My son is seven, and on a lazy weekend day he and I will go to the flagship store and just wander. He loves it; it's like a trip to a condensed world's fair. We slap oily cheese wheels, watch the chocolate fountain, smell all that dry aged meat. We talk about where different foods come from. We treat the grocery as a mini geography lesson, then go grab a 2.50 slice of pizza. It's cheaper than a movie, and it involves cheese. Love that store.
Whole foods is great. But "big organic" shouldn't be confused with "organic organic."
If you haven't read Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" yet, give it a read. You'll see Whole Foods and others in a new light. Not necessarily a bad light, but a new light. You'll also find yourself spending more Saturday mornings at your local farmers' market looking for pastured, grass-fed beef from a guy a few miles away.
Great point about "organic." Even at Whole Foods, you need to dig a bit beyond the labeling to find out just how that food is really produced. Sometimes the answers aren't terribly satisfying.
I miss the Austin Whole Foods terribly! In Dallas- it's just not the same. It would be a great kudos to them if they could figure out a way to copy that Austin culture to other stores.
I do all the shopping in my family although I'm the male spouse and I have to say I love Whole Foods Market in Cambridge, Mass, too. Why?
- Great quality produce and meat and organics.
- The people are uniformly helpful. There's a woman called "Coral" who I see nearly every Saturday helping people and when you ask her "where's the evaporated milk" she says "oh, I know we're out of that but it's coming in on Tuesdsay." How can she do that with 5000 SKUs? And with a big smile?
- The people who work in Cambridge are an incredible multicultural mix of colors and creeds. Now many foods stores have that, but how many can say they have people who've worked there for 5 or 10 years? These are the same people every week. I bet they pay more and have better benefits, but they must be saving some in turnover.
The loyalty is such that my wife has made a shopping list template organized according to aisles of the store. This makes my shopping much more efficient. Why doesn't every grocery store do this for its customers?
Many people can't afford to shop there. I feel your pain, but it's worth it for me.
It sure makes you wonder why the CEO of a company like this would involve himself in the whole "Rahodeb" fake commenting scandal. It's hard to think clearly when you've got your shoe caught in a pile of muck . . .
I'm curious - how much did you spend that week on meals?
You are spot on with talking about hiring attitude first. Openness to learning is key, not just about service but what's going in within the consumer mindset... including acceptance of new technologies. All part of having the right attitude.
Ryan, I agree. There are many ways for competitors to try to steal ideas, but it's hard for them to copy the execution.
John, great point about how to keep up older properties as the company grows. I think they really to upgrade them or close and build new locations.
Stamford Talk, thanks for reading on!
James, I know what you mean. I would be hard to shop at any of the other regular Whole Foods here.
Cheryl, I have the same experience at Target. I can never get out there for less than $125.
Nathan, I've heard a lot of good things about Wegmans.
Zack, that is a great story. It could only be better if I could take my dog into the store : )
Stephen, thanks for the book referral.
Shama, good news! I've heard they are building a very similar store in Dallas (and Houston too.)
Josh, love the shopping list template idea!
Peggy, thanks for the reminder. I updated the post with the cost of the meals.
Minter, I feel like Whole Foods is very much like Southwest Airlines in this area of hiring for attitude and training for skill.
Jacki: I agree with all your observations - espcecially the 'business as theater' concept.One question I have is how you feel about their hot food bar pricing model? It seems to be, frankly, a rip-off to me. Regardless of what a food truly costs, if it is more dense or heavy, you pay "Wheel of Fortune" prices for it. I've paid close to $10 for a pint of chocolate tofu mousse before, and $20 for lunch. That is just insane, and no I really didn't get that much food. Any thoughts?
And Southwest is an inspiration around the world!
Taking a helicopter view of the four points, I note that point #1 is all about the product. Point #2 is about the location. Point #3 is all about the people. And point #4 is about access to the new technologies. And, of all of them, as I said above, hiring for attitude and TRAINING for skill is probably the most potent. Point in case? A "bio" or "organic" product needs to set up/presented by people with the right disposition and attitude otherwise it comes off as too phoney. Then comes the need for training (it's an integral part of a successful corporate culture).
Expanding on the second point that "business is theater," I like to consider that the brand is a story. Whenever a company is created, there's always a portion of luck as the founders battle through the startup and growing phases. At some point, with a healthy amount of retrospection, the story crystallizes and, as the company moves into the "establishment" phase, the story comes to sound as if it were created at the outset. As any entrepreneur will know, the startup is rarely as romantic as the story that is recounted years later.
I'm a major advocate of creating a story for a business. It contributes to the humanization of the brand (and the company). Just as you talk about creating a theatrical environment, the key is having a brand story into which the theater fits. And, for the story to work well, it is also very appropriate to create a culture which requires actors to play the part. And there, attitude is everything. Moreover, as you so rightly indicate, a culture is not possible to replicate. It then becomes a true competitive advantage.
And the fact that Whole Foods is all about natural and organic foods, with a strong stance on sustainable development, is a bonus!
Thanks for a really good blog and some extremly interesting reading :D
Back here in good ol' Norway, supermarkeds like this is somewhat rare. Whole Foods sounded really cosy, contrary to our low-prize, cost-effective and low-service food chains.
Kristasphere,
I've not felt that I was overcharged for the food bar pricing, but maybe that is because I usually buy from the salad bar and not the hot food bar. (They use the same pricing.)
I'm guess they use the per ounce pricing for all the bars because it is much simpler than trying to price out various food individually.
Jackie,
I too am a huge Whole Foods fan. One thing I never see anyone mention when they talk about the Whole Foods brand is how it smells inside the store: like yummy, wholesome goodness. I've often wondered about the effect of the primal sense of smell on my sense of well-being when I'm in that place. (Disclaimer: I studied neuroscience in college, so I may be the only one interested in this topic)
Of course, I also love the knowledge that whenever I go there, I'm going to find the very best cheese, meats, olives, coffee, and more.
Jackie,
Sounds like you had a great week. I am a huge whole foods fan too. Even blogged about Mr. Mackey's point of view on customers and his blogging (see url anchored to my name).
What do you think about the whole blogging situation that took place a few months back?
Josef,
Do you mean the situation with the Whole Foods CEO John Mackey masquerading as Rahodeb to post things about company business on Yahoo Finance forums? That was very inappropriate. Transparency is key with social media.
That was it and agree you must be transparent. I still think they run a great business and treat their customers well.
I'd like to point out that not only 'not everything that Whole Foods sells good for you', a lot of it is not "organic" either. Contrary to popular opinion, they carry a lot of conventional stuff (especially produce) and many of their prices are bloody outrageous in comparison to the local 'conventional' grocery stores. Handmade tofu that I used to be able to get for $1.79? $2.19 at Whole Foods. City-mandated trash bags that local vendors agreed to sell for a set price? At least 40 cents more than that at Whole Foods.Truly organic local meat? Try and find it, even though it used to be available through the little organic grocer as a regular thing -- beef, pork, chicken, turkey.
They also have quite a few problems with 'transparency' such as neglecting to properly place price labels on shelves. If you're foolish enough to pick up something without a label you are guaranteed sticker shock at the cash register.
And there is no competition since Whole Foods swept into our town and bought out the little organic grocer, then turned around and swallowed Wild Oats, the only other competitor. That is not a good situation for consumers at all, and I don't care how good the monopoly merchant is seen to be.
For an interesting exercise I recommend Googling the phrase "I hate Whole Foods." That's always a fun way of gauging consumer reaction.
I applaud Whole foods in their continuity of brand and the authentic way they approach each decision.
It takes great courage to take a stand, plant your flag if you will. You will obviously alienate some potential buyers. However they are also building an authentic brand in the heart (feelings) of their consumers. This emotional attachment is what far too many of the companies I help lack. Emotion is the glue that helps the message stick.
Great post!
Mark Allen Roberts
I too, love Whole Foods, and I am grateful they are everywhere (almost) now. But, PLEASE, learn what "organic" means and does not mean. Only a small percentage of what they sell is cerified organic.
