I have been wanting to do this for a long time. When the wolf and I started living together, we had a big fuss (for us) over what grocery store we wanted to go to. I eat paleo, and you can’t do that without being somewhat health conscious. This means I also buy a lot of random shit that most big box grocery stores don’t have. Not to mention I don’t want the shitty hormones that most of the big box stores have.

But Wolf Boy claimed that Whole Foods is more expensive. I countered that even if it was more expensive (which I didn’t think it was), you get higher quality stuff and it was, then, worth it. I have said before and will say again that I am willing to shell out the bucks for my food, if that means I live healthier. But I still was skeptical of the claim that Whole Foods should be renamed “whole paycheck.”

Luckily for Wolf and me, we had the wonderful Dekalb Farmer’s Market. But we never solved the riddle of whether or not Whole Foods was that much more expensive than other stores. We tried to keep grocery lists, but we were too lazy and distracted to really dedicate ourselves to the project.

Well, my friends, now that I have moved to Philadelphia, I finally found a good scenario under which to conduct my Great Whole Foods Experiment:

I couldn’t ignore the opportunity presented here. Having these two stores right next to each other made it that much easier to compare prices. All I had to do was hop out of one and into the other! This, my friends, was providence.

I took my grocery list into both stores and compared prices. Here’s what I found:

Food (per unit) Whole Foods Super Fresh Whole chicken $2.29 $1.89 Chicken breasts $2.58 $5.79 Ground beef $4.99 $5.29 Pork chops $6.99 $4.49 Sausage links $4.99 — stir fry beef $8.99 $5.99 spinach (whole) $2.49 — Y onions $1.29 $1.79 Shallots $0.55 $1.99 Red Bellpeper $3.99 $3.99 Green Bellpepper $1.99 $1.99 Heavy Cream $3.39 $3.39 Raw Almonds $4.79 $9.99 Salt $1.49 $1.15 tomato paste $0.89 $1.00 Stewed Tomatoes $1.49 $1.89 Bacon $4.99 $3.99 Total $58.18 $54.62 Per Unit $3.23 $3.41

Really look at the table, my friends. Whole Foods cost me 4 dollars more, but it also had more items available than did Superfresh. Per unit, Whole Foods was actually 20 cents cheaper.

Here are some things that contributed to my numbers:

Whole foods was currently having a sale on meat — most of it was a dollar per pound off. However, only two of my items I purchased — the pork chops and the sausage — were on sale. And those are the meat items that I bought the least of.

Nothing else I bought at Whole Foods was on sale.

Whole Foods sells a lot of things loose — like the shallots — that only came in packages at Superfresh. The shallots were actually something like $7/lb. However, I only needed one, so I paid $.55. At Superfresh, I would have had to purchase a whole bag at $1.99

Whole Foods can offer a lot of things cheaper because it has its own brand — 365 Foods. Of course, some other stores offer this as well. SF didn’t.

Whole Foods had more variety in healthy things. For example, WF had bunched whole spinach, baby spinach, and stuff in the boxes and bags. SF only had boxed spinach. This allowed me to get spinach, but I could find the same thing for cheaper in WF.

This particular Whole Foods may be cheaper than the ones I’ve been to in Evanston and Atlanta. For example, I noticed that almond butter was $7.99/lb here, yet both in Evanston and Atlanta, it was $10/lb.

Lots of people who are into eating healthy and clean prefer Trader Joe’s. I have yet to make a comparison there, but my hunch is that it’s significantly cheaper, but with a much smaller collection of food. That was my experience at the one in Atlanta. There is a TD here in Philly, but I would have to drive to get to it, which would most likely offset the savings I would get, because I can walk to Whole Foods.

I think part of the reason why Whole Foods may seem so much more expensive to people is because Whole Foods does a really good job of enticing you to buy things. They’ve got a great environment and amazing products, and it’s hard to resist that temptation. I wouldn’t be surprised if people who spent a lot at Whole Foods did more deviating from their list than they admit. I know I was tempted. I kept thinking “I really need some apples…I could just buy the almond butter instead of making it…”

For people eating paleo, and for people wanting to clean up their diets, Whole Foods should not be written off. The quality of their foods can’t be denied, and if you’re at the point where you’re ready to look into the quality of your food, and there’s not a Trader Joe’s accessible, I highly recommend Whole Foods.

Deuces,

Gina