Oops, I messed up. More inside help, please!

wow, that's crazy.
I've only been to a whole foods once, as Buffalo is far too poor to support one. I was unimpressed. I don't think they carried a single item I couldn't find at either Wegmans, my local co-op, or both, for less money. Finding out they're unethically run is not surprising.

(now, Trader Joe's... I'd LOVE to see one of those open here!)

birdie, you don't need more inside; that's just for if a post is longer than a few lines.

This (about Whole Foods/New Seasons) seems completely ridiculous. It sounds like they plan to resist, and I don't blame them.

By the way, I was looking to see if this was in the news at all (no) and found this about New Seasons winning a local good citizenship award:

SOLV recognized New Seasons for its contributions to the livability of the communities where its stores are located. The Portland-based market, with stores in Beaverton and Hillsboro, prefers to use local growers, fishers, farmers and ranchers as vendors.

The company also contributes 10 percent of its after-tax profits to Portland-area nonprofits, with an emphasis on giving to organizations that feed the hungry, educate youths and improve the environment.

Obviously, they must be crushed.

I hope there's some buzz about this.

I went to Whole Foods once.

Remember that? That was a fun thread.

We shop at New Seasons for the stuff that counts, and at a cheaper place for some of the stuff we can't afford to buy organic / sustainable.

When we bought our new house, we moved 13 blocks farther from New Seasons, and we are now 3 blocks from a Whole Foods.

We still shop at New Seasons. Whole Foods is not only unethical, but is more expensive than New Seasons. From what I've read, the founders of New Seasons broke away from Whole Foods because of some of the ethical issues.

In any event, I've also read that they don't like to hire people who say they want to be baggers or whatever, most of the people I've met at New Seasons are using it to support their lives as artists or musicians or until their citizenship comes through, and New Seasons really likes that.

We had been walking to Whole Foods if we were missing just one thing here or there (forgot to pick up garlic at New Seasons or whatever) but having read about this earlier today, yeah, I can't shop at Whole Foods anymore than I could shop at any other place I think is predatory and unethical. Fuck that. I'll be slightly sad that I have to start my car up on occasion to go to New Seasons to pick up one item, but that's the way it'll be (and I'll still come out ahead on the money end of it too, yeesh).

I miss my co-op that I loved in Madison (still a member so that I get the newsletter and know what's going on with food) but New Seasons is pretty good and very close. People's Co-op in town (which my Madison co-op recommended) is about a thirty minute drive with traffic and parking, and I can't justify it for the every week shopping.

Whole Food sucks.

That New Seasons lawyers believe Whole Foods could win this round suggests to me that Bohler is not telling everything he knows. His direct statements about the subpoena leave a lot of room for a range of interpretations.

the founders of New Seasons broke away from Whole Foods

I agree with Ardiril - there's more to this story. What does "broke away" here mean? Were they once one company? If so, I can see where WF has a right to demand certain documents. I know WF began as sort of a cooperative conglomerate and had a lot of sub-bodies tangled together back in its true hippie days. I'd be interested to read more.

One of these days I'm going to bring my open can of Classic Coke into a WF just to watch the horrified reaction of the shoppers. The snobbery there is amazing.

In the immortal words of Marge Simpson: "I'm sorry, kids, we can't afford to shop in any store that has a philosophy."

The New Seasons blog post says: "You also are probably trying to figure out what this could possibly have to do with us. That’s a great question. Since we’ve been minding our own (local) business and have never expressed an opinion one way or the other about this merger, we were wondering the same thing."

Their motion filed with the FTC says: "...New Seasons is peripheral to and only a very small part of the dispute between Whole Foods and the FTC."

Definitely seems to be something missing here. And I bet Whole Foods doesn't agree with the "very small" description of New Seasons' role. I'm obviously not an anti-trust lawyer so I don't know what to make of this.

Their 80,000 square foot flagship store and world headquarters is right across the street from where I work. The only time I step foot inside is when I've forgotten to pack a lunch and am too lazy to walk the extra block to the 7-11. It's usually a nerve-wracking, time-consuming, baffling ordeal, and it always leaves me with a bad case of buyer's remorse.

On the plus side, their corporate office windows are literally just a stone's throw away!

You might enjoy this article about breaking up with WF.

The moral of this story? No matter which dietary style a person chooses to embrace, their potential for being a dick remains the same.

New Seasons has never had anything to do with Whole Foods. I know it may not be meaningful to people who don't live here, but that kind of misinformation is really upsetting when we could lose our local market. The motivation to implicate New Seasons is really upsetting, I'm sure they're not perfect in every possible way but why would they deserve this? You know what, no, why do we deserve this?

Anyway, it was super easy to look up their histories, so here.

All three men were veterans of the grocery business: Amy had owned another Portland-area chain called Nature's Northwest until he sold it to General Nutrition Corporation in the mid-1990s. Eggert was the president of Pacific Foods, a manufacturer of soup and soy drinks, located in nearby Tualatin, Oregon. Rohter had worked as a consultant for Nature's and, once the store became an independent subsidiary of General Nutrition Corporation, as its executive vice-president for three years. Rohter left that job when Wild Oats of Boulder, Colorado, purchased Nature's then seven-store chain in the spring of 1999. "My heart wasn't in it anymore," he explained in the Oregonian in 2000, referring to the fact that General Nutrition Corporation had allowed him the authority to make decisions he deemed appropriate, while Wild Oats set policies at headquarters.

I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like WF is trying to prove that New Seasons is a large competitor in the market, and thus a merger would not cause Whole Foods to have a dominating share. I wonder if they are asking for the same information from other local organic-targeted stores.

What doesn't make sense to me is that the a federal appeals court approved this deal and the buyout was officially completed in, like, August 2007. So why is this coming up now?

New Seasons sounds like an awesome store. I like grocery stores with a more personal touch.

I don't think they carried a single item I couldn't find at either Wegmans

That you would say that something is unimpressive because it's not better than Wegmans only shows that you don't quite grok how stunningly awesome Wegmanses are.

Yeah, and Wegmans, sadly, is not a national chain. I wish it were...

By the way, there is a MeFi thread on this where some of the lawyer-types discuss what this request actually is, how common it is in business law, and why it's not as huge a deal as it may seem.

New Seasons sounds like an awesome store.

It is. It's like a cross between Whole Foods and Safeway, but with a heavy emphasis on sourcing locally for things like meat and produce. I can get all my fancy pants oils and cheeses and local sustainable what-have-you's, and also a bag of Fritos and a sixpack of Coke, if I want. (Which I seldom do, but whatever).

This makes me really sad, actually. I'm not in love with Whole Foods, but there's one only two blocks from our house, which I can walk to in less than two minutes. Very convenient for forgotten ingredients or last-minute meal=shopping. The closest New Seasons is 20 blocks east and five blocks north, which isn't really practical walking distance, especially this time of year. But I'll be choosing principal over convenience.

Also principle, for that matter.