Brats out the back door?

Tha Hav goes Nitschke on the Whole Foods PR machine. There is a critique of the usual breathless anticipation from local media, (New Yorkers will remember it well) but also a insight to clip and save:

WF is competing with local business; it's a giant from outside appropriating our beer-and-brat culture to sell it back to us at a premium.*

As documented ad nauseam, there has been a lot of back and forth about the WF-slash-Big Organic juggernaut; one response by WF has been to encourage more direct buying by stores, in fact requiring stores to "buy out the back door" from at least four local producers The question Tha Hav raises is why we need a giant national chain  to connect local producers with local consumers.** Is the brand that powerful? Are farmers' markets that a) non-existent b) unattractive c) genuinely assy? If you have purchased local stuff at a WF, did you have another option for buying it , or were they legitimately linking producers and consumers who would otherwise pass like two ships in the night?

*Tha Hav is all about repping Badgerland, so "beer-and-brat culture" means in this context "cherished indigenous foodways," not "bypass-necessitating gluttony."

**Evidently, we do. I visited the Union Square WF during a recent Greenmarket, and it was busy.
Carts and AC: 1 Echt: Nil

Comments

[Rose's Lime]

Catching up on August postings. I think it's a differnt manifestation of fast vs. slow food - only applied to purchasing food vs. consuming it.

This weekend we started a new fall routine of contental-style consumption:
- Saturday PM, stop at family-owned italian specialty shop (Capone in Union Square) for deli meats, cheeses, pasta, pizza dough and bread - higher quality and cheaper than WF
- Sunday early AM, hit Whole Foods for organic milk and eggs ONLY
- Sunday late AM, grocery run to Market Basket for dry goods, nagtional brand cleaning supplies, fresh non-organic produce and locally baked Portuguese Muffins
- Monday after work, stop by Fresh Killed poultry for chicken to go into evening's quesadillas
- Wednesday after work (planned), stop by New Deal fishmonger for dinner entree

We'll see how long we can keep it up. Plan to keep Market Basket and New Deal in the mix but switch up specialty purveyors week-to-week to work in Asian and other flavors. We'll see how long we keep it up. Our vow is to avoid the big new River Street Whole Foods. We'll miss our visits with their pickle man though.