Behind the Scenes Preview of the new SouthGlenn Whole Foods

Last Thursday, I had the good fortune of being able to attend a media tour of the new (opening today) Whole Foods at the South Glenn Mall in Centennial, CO. Kevin M. recently commented on this blog about his concerns regarding the flashiness of Whole Foods, and whether nor not it is responsible from a waste/resources perspective. So with that in mind, let’s dive in…

The Southglenn Mall Whole Foods is the first built in the Rocky Mountain region in roughly three and a half years, so you’d expect it to have some significant improvements over their previous stores (the Boulder location was the first, built 10 years ago).

Educating the Consumer

One of the subtle features is the “Whole Story” campaign, which puts forth facts and information about the store and its ideals. Walking through the doors, you pass under:

“You are walking into the healthiest grocery in North America”

an honor conferred by Health Magazine in 2008. (This campaign has also been extended to other Whole Foods)

This education (both regarding products and Whole Foods services) exists throughout the store including: a mobile cart featuring special products accompanied by appropriate reference books, a board in the seafood department listing the boat, captain, and catch of the day (details which no other store in Colorado can boast), and various other signage promoting offerings like: free spicing, filleting, steaming of seafood and meats.

Big Footprint, Little Footprint

Though the store itself is rather enormous, they’ve made energy efficiency improvements all over the place including:

• LED lighting (even inside display cases)
• A green roof
• Skylights with “tracking parabolic mirrors” that follow the angle of the sun, illuminating the store more efficiently (and the lights will adjust to compensate for the difference)
• Custom doors on the diary section, making it 50% more energy efficient than leaving it open (as most stores do)

Whole Foods new Dairy Case Video from Ryan Wanger on Vimeo.

Does Whole Foods Care About Local

Yes.

The organization as a whole has a goal of loaning $10 million to small local producers to help them expand their businesses to provide Whole Foods with great products. Yes, this is somewhat self serving on their part, but basically, they find the best food, and if it comes from an operation too small to scale to fit the needs of a large supermarket, Whole Foods helps make it happen. Why not just go with an inferior product from a bigger organization? Because they want the best. A recent loan from them, for example, helped Justin’s Nut Butter develop and expand into full scale production of squeeze packs, which have been selling like crazy.

Need more proof? There are over 1800 products from local producers in this particular Whole Foods. Even the wood for the produce stands is local - from Steamboat Springs.

Making Whole Foods a Destination

Whole Foods Markets are increasingly turning themselves into destinations. The Southglenn location has seating for 180 people, including free-wifi, couches, tables, and a loft area with garage door walls that can be opened in nice weather.

The prepared foods section is enormous, and the food is fantastic (I got to sample: Oogave on tap, dry aged beef tenderloins, peanut tofu stir fry, BBQ chicken pizza, sticky buns, gelato - each more fantastic than the last).

Food Theater

The theme of food theater was not only visible to the naked eye, but explicitly expressed by our guides. Meat hangs in a window in the background. Butchers cut and season meat at an upfront, customer facing station. The same is true for seafood. Fresh bakery items change depending on the time of day.

To Kevin’s point, of course much of this is unnecessary in the sense that technically, the grocery store will serve it’s purpose without it. However, Whole Foods needs to be different than other stores. It needs to make people excited about real food. We don’t need another store of sterile row after row of boxed and processed foods. We need more foodies.

Although I don’t have the specific stats to back this up, there is no question that the average Whole Foods, despite it’s theater, has significantly less of an environmental impact than a typical grocery store (it stocks more local food, and works to ensure less energy consumption in-store).

Conclusion

Everything about this new Whole Foods impressed me, right down to the little things - like never referring to the people who work there as “employees” - they’re “team members”. As Whole Foods spreads in popularity, to a certain extent, it is alienating some of the hardcore foodies, who are turned off by it’s size and reach. After all, how could a giant corporation spread across the country still care about local food?

The goal for our food culture, as I see it, is to get more people thinking about where their food comes from, and why it’s important. We need more budding foodies. Having a familiar face like Whole Foods that is recognized around the country seems to be one of the best ways to accomplish this goal.

As far as I can tell, Whole Foods is serious. They aren’t faking anything. The love of good food, and support for local producers is as genuine as can be, and it shows in every employee, er…team member.