My wife and I are very much into knowing where our food came from, how it was raised/produced, etc. As you can imagine, we shop primarily at Whole Foods (outside of our CSA). We are also interested in making sure we buy these products at the best possible prices. So we routinely cross-shop at places like Marianos and even Jewel for these items. Interestingly, the cost of these types of items are almost always cheaper at Whole Foods than anywhere else. I think Marianos and Jewel mark these items up much higher because they take up precious shelf space and tend to move more slowly than the non-organic and/or mass-produced items. Just something to be aware of. If you're concerned about where your food came from, Whole Foods is actually not overpriced. If you look at how European families spend money on groceries proportional to their income, I think the Whole Foods model is more in line with that than the familiar American model. I'd have to Google the numbers, but I believe American families spend roughly 10% of their income on food, whereas Europeans will spend 15-20% of their income.
With all that being said, surely this is a huge risk on Whole Food's part, and I'm not quite sure how it will turn out. I enjoy that there is probably some portion of idealism in this move and I hope it works for both WF and more importantly the residents.
It might not be obvious if you're a vegetarian (or just minimize meat consumption), but Whole Foods is not the most cost-effective way to get high-quality traceable meat. I routinely pay more per-pound for lower-quality protein at Whole Foods than I do at Butcher and Larder, a boutique whole-animal butcher.
With all that being said, surely this is a huge risk on Whole Food's part, and I'm not quite sure how it will turn out. I enjoy that there is probably some portion of idealism in this move and I hope it works for both WF and more importantly the residents.