Whole Foods swallows up Wild Oats

February 22, 2007

The big get bigger–natural foods retailer Whole Foods has bought up one of their major competitors, Wild Oats.  Which is a bummer because they’ll probably close the Wild Oats here in Louisville. 

The Wild Oats is less than a half-mile from a Whole Foods, and the Whole Foods store has the better location of the two.  It’s right next to the big Mall St. Matthews, whereas the Wild Oats shares a little shopping center with Circuit City and Borders.  I like that Wild Oats because of the location–if I’m at Circuit City I can stop by Wild Oats to pick up some stuff.  One stop for both electronic goodies and grocery goodies.

The other bummer is that lately, Whole Foods cookies have declined dramatically in quality.  Their pecan-chocolate-chips used to be my favorite indulgence.  When I feel the need to celebrate, or just as a pick-me-up, I’d stop by the Whole Foods for one of those moist and chocolatey treats.  But the last couple times I went, the cookies had become dry and bland.  They definitely switched recipes or went to lower-quality ingredients.  The cookies you can get at the little deli shop in the front of Target are way better now than the Whole Foods.  That tells you how far the Whole Foods cookies have fallen.

I suspect Whole Foods has been cutting all sorts of corners, the cookies were just one obvious sign of that.  Perhaps they were trying to save up cash flow because they knew they were going to make this purchase.

Whatever, I’m not a Whole Foods customer anymore.  And I guess I soon won’t be a Wild Oats customer either.