Whole Foods, confounding regulators who argued the retailer would do otherwise, announced it was lowering prices at Wild Oats stores in the Rocky Mountain region.
While this might be seen as a way to calm anxious customers (or thumb its nose at regulators), it is also informed by something else: competition. On that score, Whole Foods […]

Continue reading “Supermarket Wars Part Deux” »

By Samuel Fromartz
After years of complaints and aggressive advocacy by the Cornucopia Institute and organic dairy farmers, the USDA did what it should have done long ago: it got the largest private-label organic milk company in the nation, Aurora Organic, to agree to reform its farming practices. It also threatened to revoke Aurora’s organic certification […]

Continue reading “USDA Gets Tough on Giant Organic Dairy” »

By Samuel Fromartz
Whew! What a nice break.
I did the unthinkable and went on vacation for 2 weeks without a laptop. I checked email a couple of times  at a public library, but truth be told, I didn’t miss it. Not a bit. Without pending deadlines, I had very few emails that demanded attention. And as […]

Continue reading “With My Re-Entry, A Fat Post” »

I’m surfacing from my self-imposed Internet vow-of-silence to take note that a judge has ruled in Whole Foods favor (WSJ $) and allowed its acquisition of Wild Oats to proceed. On its face, this supports the position that I’ve articulated before — that Whole Foods does indeed face competition from others besides Wild Oats and […]

Continue reading “Naturally, Whole Foods Wins” »

In case you’re wondering, we’ve entered a Net detox program for a couple of weeks this summer. Instead of blogging, we’re in the mountains eating good food, reading books, having conversations, running up and down mountain trails and generally enjoying ourselves. We’re only at step five of the detox program (and this post put us […]

Continue reading “Fromartz Unplugged” »