Whole Foods Grocery Store

Safeway goes natural to avoid becoming 'roadkill'

To celebrate its new line of foods made with natural ingredients, Safeway Inc. built the world's largest picnic table on San Francisco's Marina Green, looking out onto the Golden Gate Bridge , and hired Food Network chef Tyler Florence to cook up meals using the items.

The brand, called Open Nature, rolled out in January and features sausages, ice creams, salad dressings, breads and yogurts - all made without artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. The market for natural foods, which aren't necessarily organic or low in fat or calories, is worth $4 billion, and it's largely untapped by big food stores, Pleasanton's Safeway says.

Safeway Chief Executive Officer Steven Burd is using Open Nature, along with lower prices and a revamped website that offers personalized digital coupons, to lure back shoppers who flocked to cheaper competitors such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. during the recession. Whole Foods Market Inc., meanwhile, has done a better job of attracting a wealthier clientele.

"Safeway is in a difficult position: They can't compete on price with Wal-Mart, they can't compete on quality with Whole Foods and they can't compete on service with the smaller regional chains," said David Livingston, a grocery consultant and president of DJL Research LLC. "Safeway is a middle-of-the-road, vanilla grocery store. In the middle of the road is where you find roadkill."

The company estimates that sales, excluding gasoline, at its stores open for at least a year will rise as much as 1.5 percent in 2011, after declining 2 percent last year.

Safeway shares have risen less than 1 percent this year, compared with an 8.2 percent gain for the Standard & Poor's 500 Food Retail Index. More analysts rate the stock a "sell" than "buy," and almost half consider it a "hold," according to a Bloomberg survey.

Safeway shares fell 4 cents, or 0.18 percent, to $22.51 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

Kroger Co., the largest U.S. supermarket chain, earlier this month increased its sales forecast for fiscal 2011 to 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent growth, from earlier projections of 3 percent to 4 percent. Whole Foods, the largest U.S. natural-goods grocer, also boosted its full-year earnings projections in early May, after reporting a 33 percent jump in second-quarter profit.

"We are perfectly positioned at this point to please the consumer," said Melissa Plaisance, Safeway's senior vice president of finance and investor relations. "We have the right pricing, we have the strongest quality, we have the right facilities.

Is Whole Foods Market making people fat? - Paleo Hacks.com

. When I arrived at Whole Foods, I was expecting to be surrounded by skinny people. Emaciated people. Organic vegans and veggies. But from the moment I stepped into the store, I noticed that all of the skinny people I was expecting to see were nowhere to be found. I figured maybe they were an elusive species that only came out at night or something. The heavier people I was seeing were obviously on their way to health and would be skinny in no time.

For the next few years, I watched the WF clientele as well as the employees with fascination. Each time I was in the store, I noticed that not only were the overwhelming majority of people not skinny, they were actually fat. There was no way that I could be missing all of the skinny people, considering that I am at the store 1-2 times a week at all different hours.

Clearly, these people are health consious and they are willing to pay higher prices in order to eat healthy; so why are they fat?

The answer eluded me until yesterday. I was sitting there in the dining section watching people, when it suddenly dawned on me: Whole Foods people are fat because they are buying into the low-fat, high-carb, whole-grain, veggie-vegan lifestyle. It was like an epiphany! I know, I should have recognized the answer sooner, considering that I have been Paleo for 6 months now, but it was so enlightening to finally have the answer, I wanted to shout it out on a bullhorn. And how sad that these people truly care about their health and are trying to do the right thing by carefully avoiding the unhealthy foods, only to fail miserably unless they are willing to starve themselves. It is especially sad to see all of the moms picking out the organic juices and vegan cookies for the little ones.

So has anyone else noticed this? Are your Whole Foods people fat too? If so, did you figure out the answer immediately, or did it take some time? I'm feeling behind the curve here.

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