Whole Foods centralizes away the local
From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com
GoLocal’s March 28 story headlined “Amazon Is Slashing Jobs at Whole Foods in New England Region’’ is an unsettling sign of the times. The story was instigated by a Business Insider article that said: “Whole Foods is slashing regional and in-store marketing and graphic-design jobs in its latest push to centralize operations, say people with knowledge of the matter….It’s not clear exactly how many jobs will be affected….”
GoLocal reports that “the impact locally is that the hand-drawn blackboard signage will disappear and local advertising promotions with {nonprofit} community organizations may go away.’’’ On the East Side of Providence there are two Whole Foods stores and a somewhat similar high-end supermarket called Eastside Marketplace, formerly locally owned but now owned by Ahold, a Dutch company but which heavily promotes local ties. Will Amazon/Whole Foods’ centralizing drive push customers there?
(Trump is correct to say that Amazon has too much power, although he may be mostly driven by his fear and hatred of The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.)
Jill Richardson: Amazon selling farm-fresh electronics at Whole Foods
Home loudspeaker.
Via OtherWords.org
Now that Amazon’s taken over Whole Foods, the "natural-foods'' grocery known for its high prices, the new owners have pledged to lower prices.
I stopped by the store to see what had changed. In addition to a few discounts — organic apples went from $2.99 to $1.99 per pound — I noticed a big display in the middle of the produce section.
“Farm Fresh,” it read. “Just Picked.”
What agricultural product was this ad for? Amazon Echo — a wireless speaker.
Presumably Amazon grew the electronic devices on a nearby farm and, once ripe, harvested them off the vine and shipped them to the produce aisle in my local Whole Foods.
The same day, while browsing hiking socks online, I came across a brand I hadn’t seen before called Farm to Feet.
Seriously? Farm to Feet?
It’s true that wool — and the socks were mostly made of wool, in addition to a few synthetic fibers like spandex — comes from a sheep, and sheep are raised on a farm. The socks certainly had more of a connection to a farm than an Amazon Echo.
But I think we can officially say that “Farm to Table” has jumped the shark.
Initially, sellers who claimed to offer “Farm to Fork,” “Farm to Table,” or “Farm to School” goods supported a closer connection with your local farmer.
The idea was — and is — a great one. Get to know a local grower and learn more about where your food comes from. Support a local business. Better yet, you’ll get to eat foods that are fresh picked because they weren’t shipped halfway across the world in order to reach you.
One farm I visited near my home in Southern California grows blackberries that are bigger than some plums. These juicy giants simply can’t survive shipping. You can eat them locally or not at all.
When I lived in the Midwest, my favorite local farmer grew luscious varieties of pears and apples I’d never heard of before. They’re more delicious than apples I’ve found at any grocery store.
Often, when farmers sell directly to consumers, it’s a win-win. Farmers can charge higher prices than they can charge wholesalers, while consumers pay lower prices than they’d pay at a store.
When restaurant chefs work with farmers, they can ask farmers to grow specific varieties they want to serve, and promise the farmers a guaranteed market for their produce once it’s harvested.
My local school system found that smaller sized fruits, which farmers would otherwise be unable to sell, were the perfect size for young schoolchildren. Their Farm to School program gave a market to nearby growers while providing nutritious food to kids for lunch.
But advertising a pair of socks as “Farm to Feet” because the wool came from some farm, somewhere — that’s missing the point.
As for advertising electronics as “Farm Fresh,” I have no words. I’ve visited a lot of farms on five continents, and I’ve yet to meet a farmer who grows electronics.
Getting to know where your food comes from is a great idea. Supporting farmers in your community is wonderful. It’s a privilege that not everyone has, and it’s enriched my life immeasurably to be able to thank the people who grow my food face to face.
But for some, it’s just a marketing slogan. If your product doesn’t directly connect consumers to farmers, you shouldn’t advertise it as “Farm to” Anything.
Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.
Amazon's Whole Foods takeover: Automation will be the job killer
A Whole Foods store in Boston.
From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com:
Amazon’s plan to buy Whole Foods has elicited a lot of heavy breathing and assertions that Amazon will wipe out a lot of grocery stores. I thinkthat these forecasts are exaggerated. Groceries – stuff that can rot – are not the same things as books and clothes. The distribution challenges are very different.
Most people will continue to drive or walk to a regular (not high-end, expensive “organic”) supermarket or small grocery store for the foreseeable future. Inflation-adjusted wages have been falling for most people. The market for expensive (and some would say pretentious) food is unlikely tovastly expand. For all its alleged glamour, most people don’t shop at the expensive likes of Whole Foods – and never will.
An Amazon-Whole Foods mating might work very well in densely populated affluent areas with a close enough proximity to warehouses to ensure that the stuff can be delivered unspoiled to Amazon-Whole Foods supermarkets or to your home. But it wouldn’t work well in thinly populated areas.
Finally, even in this plutocratic age, it’s possible that the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department will awake from their all-too-frequent torpor and press monopoly charges against the company if it tries to take over a big hunk of the grocery business.
Anyway, I’m more worried about the effects on employment and wages of the automation of cashier and other jobs now underway in many kinds of stores than about Amazon specifically (I always use cashiers, not those machines, in a tiny effort to help preserve jobs.) And I worry about the effects on local tax revenue and jobs from so many stores of all kinds closing because of the online revolution.