Wal-Mart vs Whole Foods

Very interesting article... Being unemployed, Wal-Mart saves me a LOT of $$$. But for me, the best place to buy, and one that I miss dearly, is Trader Joe's... That is a very inexpensive and GREAT place, hands down the best IMO.

My mom and sister shop only at Whole Foods and I have accompanied them on several occasions. I personally never buy produce there since I think it is over priced and I can get the same quality across the street at Stop and SHop. what is interesting is one of my classmates owns a small local farm a short distanct from my parents house (I grew up with this classmate and our famlies know each other well and we have been going to his local farm for produce for years) they are one of a few orchards that still grows this one variety of Apple, They said that Whole Foods wanted this apple so the whole food corporation buys the apples from them and sells them in the store. The difference in prices between buying it by the peck at the local farm and buying it from the store is amazing. For what Whole Foods charges by pound I would be able to buy triple the amount at hte local farm. Needless to say I dont by my apples from them. I can't afford to do all my shopping at whole foods so I only go there to get the few items I can't get locally and I am a big fan of some of their 365 store brand products...like their shampoo and peanut butter.

I don't shop at Wal-mart for food since there isn't one near me. Believe it or not Whole Foods is closer to me then wal-mart.

The produce at my local Walmart never seem as fresh as other places so I do not buy it there, we do often pick up non produce groceries there though, I buy vegetables at the farmers market (they have a a store at the mall too) and everything else at a local grocery store.

Our Whole Foods does alway have fresh produce on the other hand, but its in the next city and more expensive so I only go when I need tea

We stay away from Wal Mart as much as possible. We don't have a Whole Foods close to us, and from what I've been reading about WF lately, it's probably a good thing overall. I do like WF, but they are over-priced. And it seems that some of their 365 brand items are coming from China.

I'm a big Trader Joe's fan. It's not overly expensive to shop there and I like their products very much. Unfortunately we don't have a TJ's close to us either, so we either drive to the Philadelphia area or I try to stock up as much as I can when we go to CT to visit my GF in the fall. I love TJ's olive oil, their rice products, their raw almonds, etc. Like I said, I have to stock up as much as I can. Wish we had a TJ's in our area.

When my nephew comes home to visit, he'll call me for my TJ's grocery list and he'll pick up things I need. (Did I mention that I love my nephew?? )

Hmm the walmart closest to me sells very few organic foods. I don't know what organic section they were talking about in the article.
I buy my food from a farmers market and regular grocery store which does have an organic section, and the foods in it are really good.

Um.. I don't know any of these places being talked about besides walmart. We have our own small chains of grocery stores here, and honestly a lot of their produce is terrible. If I want fresh spinach I have to wait and get it at walmart when we're in that town. When we can afford the time and money to travel further we prefer Sam's club produce. The taste and freshness is even better, plus they carry some odder stuff.
Both walmart and Sam's sells a lot of organic, it's not really marketed as such (there's no selection between organic and non) it's just what they have.

Personally for fresh produce and meats etc I stay away from Wal-Mart because I get a better deal and fresher items at Weis. But when it comes to stuff like soda, fruit snacks, chips basically my life staples..JUNK FOOD!! :o) I go get a really good deal on that stuff at Wal-Mart. I only get $367 a month on for food and since we dont eat out anymore that money goes really fast buying "real" food to cook! Now if I could get someone to come in and wash those evil evil dishes for me Id be happy!

You won't get fresher meat anywhere, except someone who slaughters their own animals, than at Wal-Mart. Their meat is generally Tyson's, and what they have in the store today was usually mooing two days ago. I used to make the meat run for a lot of stores in the Metroplex and around Texas. I would pick up the meat no later than 2:00 a.m. from the Tyson cutting plant in Sherman, TX. It would be at the DC before 6:00 a.m. to be on the trucks leaving by 10:00 a.m. and to be in the stores by 4:00 p.m. It's a very short supply chain, actually.

For a while, Wal-Mart was treated their meat with carbon monoxide. It made it look great and cut way down on spoilage. But so many people misunderstood the treatment that they had to quit it. That actually reduced the quality at them and any other store that had adopted the practice.

I just wish all foods had to be labeled as to country of origin.

You should know that at most grocery stores, fresh produce is a money loser. The stores carry it only because they have to. With spoilage, cut-offs, theft, etc., they would have to charge way too much if they wanted to actually make a profit.

In our area, Wal Mart is about the only choice. We do have regular groceries like Food Lion and Harris Teeter. I like to travel to a nearby town and shop at the Aldi's store. They really have some good prices.

I don't think I could ever buy fresh food at Walmart. While I appreciate their low prices, shopping there grosses me out. I have never seen a filthier store. Check out the restrooms. The floors have never been scrubbed since construction. And then look at the floors throughout the store, and particularly corners and edges. The grime is so black and thick that it would take a scraper to remove it. Walmart is by far the filthiest store I've ever seen, among the big chain stores. Target, Home Depot, Lowe's and even K-Mart look like operating rooms in comparison to the disgusting filth found at Walmart.

I can understand what people have against walmart as I've seen it run several good stores out of business, but what is wrong with Whole Foods?

I mean they have MUCH better meat than wal-mart. I shop at wal-mart regularly, but I never ever ever buy any type of meat there, especially their poultry which always looks very nasty and not fresh.

woah agreeing with ckblv again

While I agree that the meat in our Walamrt is awful, often on sale when it should have been thrown out, slimy and just not healthy looking - the store is always clean, in fact I have had a mop run over my shoes there on more than one occasion. It probably gets cleaned more than some of the local grocery stores and the washrooms are much cleaner than my local grocery store

That is certainly not the case in the Walmarts around here, all 4 of them. I figured it was like that everywhere. I just figured it was another way to keep the costs down. Maybe I'll go on a mission and take pictures of the filth and send them in to upper management. I doubt that the local managers give a damn.

I would, the one closest to me is still fairly new but the other one on the other side of the city always seems clean too (I have not been in it since they recently switched to a supercentre and have food there but since it was clean before I assume it is too).

The one local to me, they also made an effort to eco-friendly with geothermal heating, solar panels etc

I'm conflicted about Wal-Mart...trying to live on as little as possible, and they're also the closest store except for a gas station, so, I do actually end up there quite often...BUT...I don't like how they import so much from China, and the things they don't import, they pressure the manufacturers to lower the price on, so their effect on non-import manufacturing (and through that, the economy in general) is pretty bad.

People don't like Whole Foods because they treat their employees so well. They have excellent health care benefits from what I understand. It may be jealousy.

because of the way they treat their staff in America and also the way they treat their staff at factories in China....

I have never been a fan of Whole foods and I have been shopping health food stores for nearly two decades.. The layout IMHO stinks , I have shopped them in two states and no help or a hello .. And the Prices are higher than my Mom and pop health food or small chain stores...

Walmart I use for non perishables but NOT for meat or produce ( sometimes I will buy dairy if I am not going to the grocery )... As for made in china , lol check out most things at even high end dept stores it is one of four country's usually

That pretty much sums it up for me.

I was in a local Super WalMart last year. Now I understand that when you receive minimum wage and hardly any health benefits, it doesn't matter if you're sick or dead. You go to work. I get that. Our clerk was so sick with a nasty cold. She was sniffling, sneezing and coughing....no tissues, not even trying to turn her head to cough. When she licked her fingers to open the plastic bag, I walked out. That's just wrong. (I'm not germophobic, but the whole thing was disgusting.)

I went directly to the Customer Service area to speak with somebody. The woman told me that there were sponges at each check-out. Ummm, no there were not. We went over to the check-out. Not one was there. She told me that all clerks were told NOT to lick their fingers...well, there they were. She watched several of them. Rolled her eyes, shook her head. And that was pretty much that.

I also emailed WalMart. Did get a response. Which said pretty much what the CS woman had told me. Whatever.

We went back to WalMart a couple of times; our drug prescriptions were there and, let's face it, the prices are low. When Target opened, though, we changed our prescriptions for Target (same prices) and we shop there now if we want something and if we're not going to a mall.

Between all their "Made in China" products, their lack of decent wages for most (not all) of their employees, lack of decent health care, and the way they treat their suppliers, WalMart is not a store I want to give my money to.

That's just me....to each his or her own. We no longer shop there.

Most things are no matter where you buy them. I rarely see "Made in Mexico" anymore, it's always made in China. But if people don't choose to see that, I suppose they won't.

I agree with you. They sacrifice wages and health benefits for their employees in order to have lower prices. That's why I like Aldi- you may have to put in a quarter to get a shopping cart and need to use your reusable shopping bags because they don't provide them for customers- but the cashiers all sit at a chair while doing their work and get paid $4 above minimum wage, around $10 per hour. And why shouldn't they sit, I don't get why there are no chairs for cashiers in the US- everywhere in Europe they get to sit down.. You can scan items and take money seated just as well as you can do it standing.

I didn't realize that Walmart owns factories in China. Do they really?

Why, how do they treat their staff in America that is bad? Color me confused.

Wal-Mart's single largest drawback to me is that in order to avoid giving health insurance to all their workers, almost everyone is restricted in hours. This is a peculiarity not caused by their greediness, but rather due to the way health insurance in provided in our country. And I wish they would bite the bullet and say that if someone WANTS to be part-time, they can be, but Wal-Mart will still pay the proportional share of their health insurance, if the people will pay the rest of the portion. In other words, if you only work 20 hours per week, Wal-Mart would pay 50% of the employer's share of the health insurance.

But as to the China thing, keep in mind that the U.S. manufactures just as much today as they ever have. We just do it with fewer people.

I had this very discussion with someone a few months ago, and they were saying the same thing: "Wal-Mart imports everything from China." So, having gone shopping earlier in the day, I checked the stuff I had bought. Nothing had come from China. In fact, of the 10 items I bought, only one (an ink cartridge) was imported, and it came from the Phillipines, if I recall correctly. You can actually shop at Wal-Mart and lower your percentage of Chinese purchases as low as or lower than any other retailer, with careful shopping. Read the labels, if it makes difference to you!

I despise WalMart with a passion. There's a book called The United States of Wal*Mart. Very interesting read. It details how they treat their suppliers and their employees. If even some of it is true? Wow. Just wow.

We have an Aldi's here and it's not a bad store at all. We've gone there for a few items from time to time. I don't mind the quarter and we have 6 nice Trader Joe's reusuable shopping bags that we use for our shopping trips anyway.

I heard, but don't know if it's true, that the same people who own Trader Joe's also own Aldi's?

I've noticed this seems to be an issue with wal-marts in bigger towns. When I lived in virginia, Walmart was the only place to shop for groceries or otherwise, and the store was spotless! I also worked there they had a very religious cleaning schedule that was checked over by management every day. After moving to chicago there is no way I would shop at walmart for my groceries, I usually shop at the mexican produce shops they are normally clean, and have a lot of fresh produce at excellent prices!

But, don't all stores sell "Made In China" stuff? And lots of it? Does Target pay their employees much better than Walmart? Does anyone know starting salary at Target vs Walmart?
Also, does anyone know any actual comparison figures for health benefits between Target vs Walmart?

Or are people just repeating talking points from others, including the Unions, which HATE Walmart's guts BAD?

Why is that, do you think?
I know what I think. It is because we, as Americans, have no loyalty to our country, we want cheap stuff and we want to pay a low price for it. China fills OUR NEED. Don't blame China, put the blame where it belongs, on WE the PEOPLE.

So, you want to discriminate against poor people. That isn't very nice Utopia.

What is starting salary for a Walmart cashier? What is starting salary for a Aldi cashier.
What are the health benefits at Aldi vs health benefits at Walmart?

Here a Walmart cashier makes 8.40 -11.40 to start per hour depending on experience... I actually know mall dept stores that pay less