Whole Foods Lowers Prices: Commits Treason Against Pretentious Foodies - Granite Grok

Whole Foods Lowers Prices: Commits Treason Against Pretentious Foodies

Amazon whole foodsChicago Trib Reporter Rex Huppke has some fun at the expense of the stereotypical Whole Foods Cultist. The beef? Amazon is lowering prices.

Good grief. Now eating ground beef that has been animal-welfare-rated won’t seem so special. And the days of silently mocking people who eat irresponsibly-farmed salmon are over, all thanks to a corporate giant that sells virtually everything on Earth EXCEPT status.

When I first heard of the Amazon/Whole Foods pairing, I thought there might be hope for the Whole Foods clientele. Perhaps Amazon would deliver fresh-ground almond butter and adzuki bean and sea-salt crackers to the doorsteps of the worthy via drones named Finn, earthy flying machines that were just working at Whole Foods until their alt-folk drone band took off.

But the press release says nothing about drones with man buns. Just a bunch of blah-blah about “lower prices for customers over time.”

Paying too much for something (at the right place) is a status symbol among people who pay too much for things at all the right places. The rest of us look on and wonder $12,000.00 handbags? Seriously?

As a responsible free market conservative, I’m looking for 85% ground beef at under $3.99 per pound, which, to the Whole Foods Fanatics is like serving the wrong Riesling with the Kale and Arugula salad.  Supporting slavery might be less offensive.

So Huppke’s turn on Whole Foods is hilarious and worth the time.

The point was you could get the same kind of nasty, flavorless hippie gunk that used to sell for cheap at dirty co-ops but pay 17 times more for it because it came in a package with a dolphin and a Native American prayer printed on the label. And that was desirable, because as soon as people who didn’t have food with a cool dolphin and a Native American prayer printed on the label got a look at your dolphin-labeled, spiritual, nut-free, 100-percent organic, antioxidant-rich prune chew, they would (you assumed) envy the daylights out of you.

Envy, status, perception.

Whole Foods franchised a nationwide opportunity to fuel pretention or the appearance of pretention. Amazon’s takeover is sacrilegious. Not because it will encourage economic refugees to mingle beyond their dietetic station, but because charging less under the pretense of balancing quality and value is a good business model. Or do I have that reversed?

I see one logical solution to the dilemma Amazon has created: If the masses can afford environmentally friendly and cruelty-free food, then environmentally reckless and cruelty-full food must be priced high and sought after by the elite.

Former Whole Foods shoppers must now seek out expensive cuts of animal-welfare-ignored beef, fatty and guaranteed to come from a cow that was killed in a most merciless way. (Foodies will latch onto the belief that terror promotes better marbling.)

With Whole Foods trying to appeal to the rabble Pretentious shoppers will need an overpriced place to call their own.

Perhaps Trader Joe’s or some other chain will see the opportunity and raise their prices?

Whatever the solution the market, if left to its own devices, will provide.

 

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