I was really looking forward to visiting
Whole Foods Market. The store, which opened recently on Kensington High Street London, is the first of the American chain to trade on British soil. Over the last few years I have read a lot about Whole Foods, which is best described as a massive health, local, speciality and organic foods supermarket, and have been intrigued by it's combination of good foods on a large corporate scale.
As I stepped in the door there was, luckily, a leaflet telling me 'How To Shop The Store'. I say luckily because as I looked around me I was surrounded by masses and masses of food. There were towers of beautiful bread, piles of fruit and veg, a serve your self deli counter as long as a double decker bus and a cheese room that, enclosed in glass as it was, was the size of a small Dublin bar. There were isles and isles of grocery products and I was delighted to find some organic products that I hadn't encountered before on the shelves (I will review these at a later date). Without the guide I may never have found my way out!
Upstairs there is a food hall. I was really looking forward to eating here. I once stumbled on one of these food halls in New York in the middle of the night and have always regretted not dining there. Unfortunately my expectations of fine food were not met. After having a quick look around the options seemed to be very limited. Organic pizza by the slice seemed to be the only option that even slightly appealed to my taste buds and as it was rather confusingly priced by weight rather than slice I decided to give it a miss.
My general impression of the store was good. I found the staff friendly and no one could fault the range of products. There were handy information leaflets and recipe cards everywhere, all printed on recycled paper.
On the downside, I was disappointed that there were not more organic foods available. Not all of the fruit and veg was organic and where it was, I would have liked it to have been easier to identify, maybe by some in house labeling system. The same could be said for the local produce. Another concern was the sheer amount of fresh foods. Surely this must lead to a great deal of waste? Finally what sort of impact does a store like this have on the small local organic and health food businesses?
Although I enjoyed the shopping experience I don't think I would have the budget to shop here on a regular basis. It also takes the fun out of finding things in tiny speciality shops, which is one of the pleasures of touring the UK.
If you read enough about Whole Foods Market you will find that it was born from good ideals. It is refreshing to find a company that has always been committed to the principals that so many are now adopting due to customer demand. There is even a
Whole Foods Foundation whose mission, in it's own words;
'... is to create economic partnerships with the poor in those developing-world communities that supply our stores with product. Through innovative assistance for entrepreneurship (helping people help themselves), we seek to unleash the energy and creativity of everyone in order to foster wealth and prosperity in emerging economies.'
It is hard to find fault in a company that seems to be doing almost everything right. There is a part of me that is conditioned to believe that because they are a large American chain there must be something wrong with them, but to be honest aside from the comments above I couldn't tell you what it was.
As a British native, I spent a number of years in my early 20's learning to love real ale. As part of a small group of friends I used to search out small 'Free House' pubs and large beer festivals in search of new ales to taste.
