Whole Foods in London - Check out Whole Foods Markets!
Mar 28th, 2012, 09:38 AM
#1
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Whole Foods in London - Check out Whole Foods Markets!
http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/kensington/
Whole Foods Market, now all over the States, have entered the British market with their flagship store on posh Kensington High Street and now are rapidly expanding with four smaller WFMs scattered around London.
So if tired of grease and heavily processed foods that many Brits eat (and Yanks too at home!) head to WFM!
Whole Foods Market, now all over the States, have entered the British market with their flagship store on posh Kensington High Street and now are rapidly expanding with four smaller WFMs scattered around London.
So if tired of grease and heavily processed foods that many Brits eat (and Yanks too at home!) head to WFM!
Mar 28th, 2012, 09:39 AM
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Mar 28th, 2012, 10:15 AM
#6
Pal, it seems to me you have brought this subject up before and for whatever reason it ended up being a lovefest between yourself and Flanner.
Personally, I like Whole Foods for SOME things which I cannot find locally elsewhere.
What I DON'T like is walking into Whole Foods and seeing the very same cute little tomatoes with those little green vines attached that I saw in the Safeway and at a lower price.
Personally, I like Whole Foods for SOME things which I cannot find locally elsewhere.
What I DON'T like is walking into Whole Foods and seeing the very same cute little tomatoes with those little green vines attached that I saw in the Safeway and at a lower price.
Mar 28th, 2012, 10:31 AM
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At the Kensington store, they were out of onions when we were there this past Sept. We shopped at WF twice - no onions both times. All they had were rotted & mushy organic onions. The store is poorly laid out also. The salad bar was very un-appetizing.
We did most of our meat & produce purchasing elsewhere.
There are Whole Foods stores all around us in the San Francisco Bay Area - much better than the one we visited in London.
Stu Dudley
We did most of our meat & produce purchasing elsewhere.
There are Whole Foods stores all around us in the San Francisco Bay Area - much better than the one we visited in London.
Stu Dudley
Mar 28th, 2012, 11:02 AM
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I went to a Wholefood store in the US and found the food too processed, also a lot of the stuff not locally grown. Went to the chicken section, but they were all bleached. I don't get it.
Still prefer the farmers markets.
London was once filled with many local markets, all gone now, well around Spittlefields, Borough are, but there used to be many more street markets when I lived here 20 years ago!
Still prefer the farmers markets.
London was once filled with many local markets, all gone now, well around Spittlefields, Borough are, but there used to be many more street markets when I lived here 20 years ago!
Mar 28th, 2012, 11:29 AM
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Big deal. While some Americans are getting into a lather about Whole Foods Market, I can't see what the fuss is about. We visited a WFM in NYC a couple of years ago and to be honest it was similar to Waitrose or M&S here in the UK - just significantly more expensive. I seem to remember we bought a small bag of croissants for US$5 (plus tax of course). Can't see it catching on apart from with a niche ex-pat market in affluent parts of London.
Mar 28th, 2012, 12:11 PM
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"are rapidly expanding with four smaller WFMs scattered around London."
Wow!!!
In 2004, they moved into the UK by acquiring seven Fresh & Wild stores around London (three of which they've closed). Only in America is halving your number of stores over 8 years called "rapid expansion"
And only in America has creative accounting reached the level that it's possible for Whole Foods to be allowed in their 2011 accounts to get away with saying "gains and losses associated with our United Kingdom operations are excluded from the determination of net income since these transactions are considered long-term investments in nature"(10k: year to Sep 25 2011)
Total Whole Food sales in the UK and Canada combined in 2011 were $30 mn, or £20 mn. Annual growth, translated into USD, was around 11% (or less than the appreciation of the GBP against the USD, so cash sales fell in a year UK food inflation was around 6%. Whole Foods UK sold less food in 2011 than in 2010)
400,000 quid a week!! There's not a single store over 30,000 sq ft (Whole Foods Kensington trades 80,000 sq ft) in any major UK supermarket chain recording such pathetic sales. Even if the other 4 UK stores and the 7 in Canada are selling nothing at all, Whole Foods is now running at less than a third the sales per square foot of professional grocers like Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury. Or even my neighbourhood consumer Coop.
How long can these egotistical buffoons continue draining cash? If they had the brains to turn the Kensington building into a block of flats for Middle Eastern kleptocrats, they'd easily avoid the catastrophic write off going back home and leaving food retailing here to the grownups would impose on them.
But there's nothing like a fool's "vision". And nothing as dysfunctional as US corporate governance for letting these lunatics squander shareholders' funds.
Wow!!!
In 2004, they moved into the UK by acquiring seven Fresh & Wild stores around London (three of which they've closed). Only in America is halving your number of stores over 8 years called "rapid expansion"
And only in America has creative accounting reached the level that it's possible for Whole Foods to be allowed in their 2011 accounts to get away with saying "gains and losses associated with our United Kingdom operations are excluded from the determination of net income since these transactions are considered long-term investments in nature"(10k: year to Sep 25 2011)
Total Whole Food sales in the UK and Canada combined in 2011 were $30 mn, or £20 mn. Annual growth, translated into USD, was around 11% (or less than the appreciation of the GBP against the USD, so cash sales fell in a year UK food inflation was around 6%. Whole Foods UK sold less food in 2011 than in 2010)
400,000 quid a week!! There's not a single store over 30,000 sq ft (Whole Foods Kensington trades 80,000 sq ft) in any major UK supermarket chain recording such pathetic sales. Even if the other 4 UK stores and the 7 in Canada are selling nothing at all, Whole Foods is now running at less than a third the sales per square foot of professional grocers like Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury. Or even my neighbourhood consumer Coop.
How long can these egotistical buffoons continue draining cash? If they had the brains to turn the Kensington building into a block of flats for Middle Eastern kleptocrats, they'd easily avoid the catastrophic write off going back home and leaving food retailing here to the grownups would impose on them.
But there's nothing like a fool's "vision". And nothing as dysfunctional as US corporate governance for letting these lunatics squander shareholders' funds.
Mar 28th, 2012, 12:18 PM
#14
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US corporate governance for letting these lunatics squander shareholders' funds>
shareholders hold the power thru annual elections to Boards of Directors, right? Funny that a Conservative with a capital C advocates Government with a capital G interference with how a corporate entity is run - now you seem to be charging negligence but if all negligent Boards of Directors were subject to government (small g) action then paralysis may set in and they could be afraid to do anything so bold as to yup try to enter the British whole foods market. That said I do hope WFM everywhere folds their tent because of CEO Jahn Mackey's (?name) Darwinian survival of the fittest type outlook on social welfare for the poorer folk.
shareholders hold the power thru annual elections to Boards of Directors, right? Funny that a Conservative with a capital C advocates Government with a capital G interference with how a corporate entity is run - now you seem to be charging negligence but if all negligent Boards of Directors were subject to government (small g) action then paralysis may set in and they could be afraid to do anything so bold as to yup try to enter the British whole foods market. That said I do hope WFM everywhere folds their tent because of CEO Jahn Mackey's (?name) Darwinian survival of the fittest type outlook on social welfare for the poorer folk.
Mar 28th, 2012, 12:23 PM
#15
Kensington High Street ain't that posh.
If you are really posh, you have the fancy-goods vehicle from Harrods Food Halls deliver your dinner to your big white house in Notting Hill.
Knows Posh,
Pepper
If you are really posh, you have the fancy-goods vehicle from Harrods Food Halls deliver your dinner to your big white house in Notting Hill.
Knows Posh,
Pepper
Mar 28th, 2012, 12:43 PM
#16
"<i>Actually I boycott WFM . . . </i>"
but not enough to prevent you from posting the same stuff over and over again.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...roliferate.cfm
Apparently you are a shill for them since you continue to spread the word.
but not enough to prevent you from posting the same stuff over and over again.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...roliferate.cfm
Apparently you are a shill for them since you continue to spread the word.
Mar 28th, 2012, 01:49 PM
#17
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<<Whole Foods Market, now all over the States, have entered the British market with their flagship store on posh Kensington High Street and now are rapidly expanding with four smaller WFMs scattered around London.>>
Thinking this came straight from a press release. And the WFM in Kensington has been there for a while.
Far better places in the US: Sprouts, Trader Joe's, Central Market (Texas), Garden of Eden (NY) . . .
In other news, Francisco Franco is still dead.
Thinking this came straight from a press release. And the WFM in Kensington has been there for a while.
Far better places in the US: Sprouts, Trader Joe's, Central Market (Texas), Garden of Eden (NY) . . .
In other news, Francisco Franco is still dead.
Mar 29th, 2012, 07:10 AM
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>>If you are really posh, you have the fancy-goods vehicle from Harrods Food Halls deliver your dinner to your big white house in Notting Hill.<<
That's not posh, that's vulgar. <i>Really</i> posh people have as much as possible sent up from the estate in a plain van. And for the rest, there are squads of staff of people browse the likes of Harvey Nicks for them, incognito.
That's not posh, that's vulgar. <i>Really</i> posh people have as much as possible sent up from the estate in a plain van. And for the rest, there are squads of staff of people browse the likes of Harvey Nicks for them, incognito.
