Whole Foods Market

Location

500 1st Street #1, in the Davis Commons

Hours

Not yet open

Website

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

Owner

A publicly-traded corporation

Whole Foods Market has (as of 11/2/11) reported via twitter: "We've got another new store planned for..............DAVIS, CALIFORNIA!!!" Another report puts the store in the former Borders site in Davis Commons. According to its website, "Whole Foods Market is the world's largest retailer of natural and organic foods." Reports give no timeline for the store to open.

Whole Food's CEO, John Mackey, is anti-union, doesn't believe in climate change and is anti-state health insurance; however, he does believe in individual and corporate responsibility. As such Whole Foods employees, like those at several other Davis supermarkets, are paid above minimum wage, the top earner is restricted to 19X the lowest paid salary (compare this to the "average" CEO at 400X the lowest salary) and the company has been placed in the top 100 to work for by Fortune magazine (only 15 places below Nugget Market on the 2011 list!) for over two decades—often listed in the top 10. In 2009 he wrote a controversial editorial against the public health insurance option. He eventually resigned as chairman of the board, largely due to public pressures surrounding the editorial. Mackey maintains the position of CEO.

Construction Management & Builders, Inc. will be the general contractor for the project.

Anticipated construction start is April 16, 2012
Target completion is September 28, 2012
Target grand opening is October 24, 2012

According to a Davis Enterprise article:

• The store's entrances will stay where they are now, and they won't do much to the exterior. They are aiming to open in a year or so.
  

• The store will feature a large prepared foods area and lots of "grab-and-go" items, as well as produce, meat, seafood, bakery, cheese, beer, wine and grocery sections.
  

• They want to take advantage of the large grassy area out in front and the seating that's already there. They want to increase the amount of bike parking, and potentially do bicycle delivery, which they already do in some of their other locations.
  

• This will be a smaller store. They are expecting to have their share of the market, but they "don't need it to be dominant in the market." They "think there’s enough pie to go around," and hope to "turn some of the shoppers who aren't currently natural food shoppers into natural food shoppers," which "would help other natural grocers."

Although the Whole Foods model is to sell food that is natural and/or organic, they gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the “conditional deregulation” of ["Monsanto"’s genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa]. Whole Foods has defended their decision as the only alternative to complete deregulation. This never meant Whole Foods endorsed GE foods or was planning to stock the alfalfa.

Whole Foods does carry select GM foods, as do Safeway, Nugget, SaveMart, Trader Joe's, and the Co-op, since all carry conventionally-grown soy, corn and canola products. Some processed foods are certified to be "Non-GMO", but these are the exception as, 60-95% of the crops grown in the US are GM. The only way to avoid that is to stop consuming these products entirely. While consumers can make that choice, few retail grocery stores have adopted that policy due to the high volume of goods containing soy/corn/canola.

Comments:

Note: You must be logged in to add comments

2011-10-29 11:13:53   Seems like it would be a small space for a Whole Foods... they're usually pretty large. And parking would be a nightmare. —CovertProfessor

• A friend suggested it might be like their smaller Petaluma store. The person who signed the lease may not have tried driving to and parking in the Davis Commons lot. Of course, not everyone drives to a food market. —DougWalter
  

• True, but I don't tend to see a lot of bikes at Davis Commons. I think most either drive or are walking over from someplace else downtown. —CovertProfessor
  

• Oh uh.. it's getting real in the Whole Foods parking lot.
  

2011-10-29 16:14:33   yes please! —OliviaY

2011-10-31 11:53:12   Seriously??!? This is such a bad idea. Parking is so bad there, and aren't there already a bunch of grocery stores downtown? They should've put in an Urban Outfitters. —kristineg

2011-10-31 13:05:02   Regardless of the parking, I think this would be great! They sell a lot of (good) gluten free items I just can't get anywhere else, and I hate treking to Sac for it. I have to say, I stopped parking in that lot a long time ago, but still frequent the businesses there. I've committed to just parking at the northwest corner of downtown and making the 5 minute walk. Plus, I never buy enough at WF to not be able to carry my groceries that far. —AmLin

2011-11-01 00:52:00   I'm just glad it's not a clothing store. If this puts the Co-op out of business, I for one won't cry. I could never afford to pay $6 for a jar of peanut butter anyway. If Whole Foods is even moderately affordable I'll be happy. —ScottMeehleib

2011-11-01 08:08:22   Hah! I had never set foot in a Whole Foods until just a couple months ago. I was shocked at the prices. The Co-Op is a tad less expensive, but not by much. I'm really surprised there hasn't been any oposition from the Co-Op on this, or is there? I agree, parking would be a nightmare too. I'm sure Pluto's won't like this too because Whole Foods has similar items at their take-away/buffet section. —jsbmeb

I'm not clear if prices are lower or higher. —BruceHansen


Well, the store does have the nickname "Whole Paycheck." However, some people claim that if you buy the Whole Foods brand (with the name '365'), the prices are actually pretty good. I haven't shopped at Whole Foods often enough to know if that is true or not. —CovertProfessor


Perhaps because the Whole Foods brand sources many of its "organic" products from China: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MBiI9KcJ9UY —clester

2011-11-02 06:30:25   Yes parking is a problem. It seems to me that with the upcoming narrowing of Fifth Street for cars it will become more of a parking lot, but not for long enough to allow people to shop at the Food Coop or the further away WFM. —BruceHansen

2011-11-02 09:43:31   The fact of being a cooperative is a far better advantage to the Davis Food Coop for me than whether their food is organic or not, or gmo or not. In my opinion, (anti)"gmo" and organic are hype and Whole Foods is built on that hype. The true advantage of food sold at farmers markets is better quality control because of a smaller supply chain and fewer workers in smaller farms. These advantages just aren't available at a corporate octopus chain like Whole Foods like they are at the Co-Op and the Farmers Market. Chains like Safeway and Savemart have economies of scale which is why I shop at those stores (in addition to not living by the Co-Op anymore :( ), but Whole Foods doesn't provide this either. Don't believe the hype! —NickSchmalenberger

2011-11-02 23:18:22   Whole Foods definitely runs on the expensive side. To support that, they only place their stores in neighborhoods with an average income of at least $50,000 a year. (Or at least that used to be the case. I don't know if this is still true, and given that undergrads (half the population of Davis) have an income much lower than that, it might not be true at all any more.) The Borders space really does seem too small for a store like that. Maybe if they took over one or two of the neighboring spaces too? —IDoNotExist

2011-11-02 23:19:39   Actually their policy isn't based on income, but the percentage of the population in a city that are college graduates. —OliviaY

2011-11-03 11:54:34   If you really think you need this, then you don't realize what you already have for choices. Seriously, there's nothing you can't already get at the Co-Op, Nugget, and Trader's and for cheaper than what you can get at the properly termed "Whole Paycheck". Between Trader's and the Co-Op, there are more good GF options than you can find at Whole Foods, believe me I've compared. Plus the Co-Op test kitchen has classes on making the hard things like GF breads and cakes. All you're going to get with this are out-of-towners that want to go to a "BIG LABEL" store, filling up what is already a congested intersection. I came from an area where Whole Foods and Safeway were our only options, I had to drive an hour just to get to SF Rainbow Co-Op where things were cheaper than whole paycheck... I've been soo happy to be back near Davis where there are more options. I'm sad this seemed like the best option for Davis Commons... You've got some good storefronts/restaurants there already, I don't think this will complement. —elizabethweitzel

• I agree the location seems horrible, but there are a LOT of things I can't find anywhere but whole foods. Specifically specialty baked good items and whole chunk chocolate for baking. I've looked in every store in town for certain items and the only places I've ever gotten them were WF.—oy

• * My opinion is that you won't find them at this smaller store, once it opens. They will not have an onsite Bakery, and are unlikely to haul specialty baked goods from a central one for the two GF cakes per month they will sell. —rocksanddirt
  

2011-11-03 21:54:12   I don't understand how Davis is going to support another grocery store ... and especially one that's downtown where shopping and eating in restaurants takes place. I wouldn't ever go to Davis Commons just for Whole Foods - parking is awful and it's too far of a bike ride from anyplace I would live. The only way I can see using this place is if I don't feel up to Pluto's or some other Davis eatery, but it doesn't sound like the prices would justify Whole Foods over a decent Davis meal. We have great, 'high-end' grocery stores already. IN ANY CASE - they can try, and if it fails, well no loss here. —ChristyMarsden

• There's a good chance that this additional competition will lead to the closing of one or two grocery stores in Davis. It's unlikely that WF will be the first: they are a very successful chain and have lots of money. They have closed 16 stores in the past three years, but have started 51 according to their SEC 10-K report for 2010.
  

2011-11-22 15:04:09   to the person about the whole chunk chocolate, I saw some at nuggets on covell, the one near the carls jr and CVS. :) —SherrineLau

• They carry during the holiday season but not any other time of the year. Thanks though. —oy
  

• I saw chunks of white chocolate at the food co-op when I was there yesterday. I wasn't looking for it, but from that I would assume that they also carry chunk milk and/or dark chocolate. —knaggers