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Please carry Himalayan Green Tea Kombucha! And more varieties of dried beans, please. My local WF only carries three varieties: black, pinto and chickpeas.

Dear Whole Foods,

Your once luscious, gorgeous, beautiful, fabulous cold and hot bars have lost their luster in West Hartford on Raymond Road. What's going on????

Build one near me as I have never even SEEN one, much less gotten to shop there. :)

Whole foods hot bars really vary from place to place. In DC the one up in Tenleytown is full of yummines but the Silver Spring location is pretty lackluster.

Also Dear Whole Foods

I know your called whole paycheck for a reason but your cheese prices are beyond ridicule.

kthnxbai

Dear Whole Foods,

Please open a store here... I think I live in the only state in the US without a Whole Foods. Why must I be so deprived?

My kingdom for a Whole Foods...

please don't charge organic prices for conventional produce.

@huneybumper - thank you! I'm dying for a store in North Houston - they bought out Wild Oats, and one was supposed to go in just a couple miles away...when that merger occurred it fell off the map...

Dear Whole Foods,

Please come to Beijing!

Dear Whole Foods,

Why do you think that only people in North Atlanta deserve to shop at your store? Are you too good for South Atlanta? It would be nice if I didn't have to use a Whole Tank of gas to spend my Whole Paycheck. Open up some more stores around the southern perimeter of the city, for Pete's sake.

I second the removal of the raw onion in the tuna salad!

Please sell "certified humane raised and handled" eggs. Marking containers "cage free" or "free range" or "organic" doesn't say anything concrete about conditions, and once a person knows what happens to creatures in many of the supposedly "natural" chicken farms, believe me, you don't want to buy them or stare at them in the pan. The "certified humane raised and handled" guarantee is the only way one can be sure these creatures haven't been mutilated and worse. None of the eggs Whole Foods currently sells qualify.

open one in austin for people who want to shop for food instead of ogle it. if i had had a machine gun when i was in there last weekend . . .

Open a store in Iowa! I don't understand it...do they think we Midwesterners aren't "progressive" enough to appreciate healthy, organic, REAL food?? C'mon people! We approved gay marriage....I think we deserve some real food! I have to stock up everytime I visit Minneapolis (which of course means only packaged food that will survive the trip and the storage). Same goes for Trader Joe's...what I wouldn't do for a TJ's less than 4 hours away!

How about using all recyclable or biodegradeable containers? I am constantly amazed that most of the packaging at Whole Foods (for items like the olive bar, deli salads, prepared foods and so on) is #5 plastic, which is very difficult to recycle. How about using #1 plastic? Alternatively, accept the clean #5 plastic for recycling at your stores!!!

More dried fruit options would be nice! They stopped carrying my dried pineapple ring snacks. And better organization of the items featured on the Fearless flyer. It takes me forever to find those items.

Build one in NW Arkansas! It sucks that the closest one is like 4 hours away.

Please set up shop in Puerto Rico... do some market research and you'll see we're the best spenders in the whole US. We have the highest grossing Sears, JCPenney, COSTCO, Best Buy, etc... It's a business no-brainer.

To the WF on Clarendon Blvd in North Arlington, VA:
Put the signs on the actual produce. Stringing them above is worthless and it I often can't find what I need because of inadequate signage. Furthermore it makes it impossible to check the price because the sign for something got pushed all the way down to the end of the rod.
Oh and it couldn't hurt to lower your prices a little bit...even though you are the closest supermarket and have a monopoly...its just not nice.

Dear Whole Foods:

It's been awhile. Yes, I admit it. I've found someone else. Wegmans. He's cheaper and stocks the generic cleaning products that I like because I'm not pure enough for you--I will buy the kind that costs 89 cents rather than the ones with pictures of green valleys that save the environment and cost a couple of bucks. Wegmans understands me. He doesn't judge.

Wegmans and I eat in much more than you would approve of, Whole Foods. He is the strong, silent 'ingredients' type, more than the 'eat out' type. He does sell local produce, but not all of it is officially organic. I'm okay with that--again, I'm cheap.

I just wasn't that turned on by your sandwiches and sushi and bagels. They were good but...I can't do take-out every night, otherwise I would be 300 pounds.

Your checkers near where I live are also slow, hip, and get angry because I don't bring a Whole Foods green bag. They let me know I'm not good enough for you. So, see ya WF!

Dear Whole Foods,

I visited you today. I know it's been a while, but after the last disappointment, I had to take a break. I went to see you today because I wanted one particular vegetable that I couldn't find at the local grocer.

But alas, you didn't have it either. What you did have was a aisle after aisle of prepared foods and junk foods. I'm sorry, but organic, thinly sliced peruvian potatoes deep-fried in lovingly tended free-range berkshire pork lard and dusted with hand-harvested mediterranean subterannean sea salt is still a bag 'o junk food potato chips. Junk food is junk food, I don't care how organic or free range it is. And processed packaged taco kits are still packaged processed taco kits, I don't care how green the packaging is. Do you really need that many taco kits? Really? People can't find the tortillas and the seasoning unless it's in a flippin' kit?

Bulk jelly beans labeled "jolly beans" are still candy. It's fine if you want to sell candy, but it's disappointing when less than a third of the bulk section has grains and beans and the rest is candy and junk.

And by the way, when I walk past the seafood section and it smells like the back alley behind a sardine factory, it doesn't entice me to buy.

I want to see more veggies, more single-ingredient items, and more hard-to-find ethnic ingredients. How about yuzu juice instead of fourteen varieties of apple juice, most of which are at every other grocery store in the area?

And how about more local stuff? This area is infested with beekeepers who sell honey. Some of them even sell at the local grocery stores. But your honey comes from distant states. Why? Our bees not good enough for you?

Sigh. I went to Sunflower Market, found the stupid cucumbers I was looking for, and saw that bulk quick-cooking rolled oats were 79 cents a pound instead of the $1.99 you wanted me to pay.

Am I bitter? Yes, I am. And I am very sad that I don't know this Wegmans fellow that @heart is talking about. I would like to meet him some day.

Re: The WF in Falls Church, VA:

The good: 360 Brand products are good value and of quality. And your sushi isn't bad for grocery store. Your cashiers are friendly.

The bad: The produce is just not that great. Plus, a lot of it doesn't have a price, and being WF, I'm not gonna chance it. Also, I don't care if it's organic.

The meat just isn't that good. The ribeyes at Trader Joe's across the street taste much better for half the price.

The hot and cold food bars are pretty awful. Particularly the cold. About a month ago, I filled a container with what I thought would be a tasty variety of things, only to end up throwing out about $18 worth of food because it had no taste at all.

The pre-packaged bread, sounds so natural, but tastes terrible.

But I am wearing the cute earrings I bought there the other day. : )

@chanterelle, the unpriced produce is a pet peeve of mine at every store. Because not only is it going to be un-priced, but whoever you ask to get a price is going to look at it and say, "Duh, what is it?" Which means that at the checkout, it's going to ring up as something else, anyway.

I picked up a bag of priceless carrots at WF and asked someone for a price. It's carrots. In a bag. How long can this take to figure out? First he tells me he thinks it's $3.99 but when I said, "Are you sure?" He went to check. Nope. $13.99. I think not.

@Heart, it figures. None of the cool chains want to move here. I told my husband that if we ever take a trip east, we're going to have to rent a refrigerated trailer for the groceries I'm bringing back.

Dear Whole Foods,

We're on to you. Your marketing strategies are quite brilliant: wrap everything in organic/holistic/local/exclusive/happy/bright/delicious packaging, and every sucker that's fed up with regular grocery stores will beat a path to your door. You peddle the same things that Gristede's or Safeway or A&P do, but you carry the exotic, high-design version. And charge double. Cause goodness knows, people are mesmerized by pretty packaging, and they tend invest their trust in the high-priced over the discounted. You aint' gettin' away with nothing in my world.

Dear Whole Foods,

Riddle me this. Why is it that at your store in Monterey, all of your food is wholesome and organic and well prepared, yet most of your shoppers are laden with chemicals and additives, like silicone and botox?

Thanks,

M

Please sell wine. Oh, wait that's just a TN *thing* not a Whole Foods *thing*.

@DJWackfriz (love the name, BTW) - I shop at Fresh Market pretty regularly and I've never had to conduct a produce lesson. I agree - I'd never expect that at a WF either.

Please carry Ficocco at your Miami stores.

Dear Whole Foods,

I used to go to you every day, without a doubt, to get something covered in yogurt, and something covered in carob or chocolate. I'm a distance runner, and you know... we have our needs! Not only did you discontinue having your yogurt covered peanuts in your NC store, but you also soon rid of the yogurt covered raisins. Not only do I miss my trips to the bulk bins, but I hardly go to your store anymore. It's one or two rare items like those that give incentive to choose one store over another. Maybe I'm one in many, but it's a marginal loss of about 10 bucks a day for you guys. Bring back the yogurty-goodness!!

WF - feel free to delete the chicken-fried tofu nuggets from your hot bar in the Duluth GA store.

Dear Whole Foods,

i am terrified of the excess of luxury and indulgence in your store and rarely go in.

love, a Central Market devotee

Ditto on the wegman's. Their prepared food is outta sight. Also, the Marco Polo bread is amazing (beware, it goes stale REALLY fast).

My dearest Whole Foods,

You're the only store in town where I'll buy meat, and your produce is my life. I love you. Can you please bake sourdough bread all day, every day, and make sure there's a loaf for me when I come to shop?

Also, I asked you on Twitter about the recipe for your vegan chocolate chip cookies, and you said the people in the store would tell me if I asked, and so I asked, and they wouldn't tell me. I may or may not have cried myself to sleep over this.

Sincerely yours until HEB brings a Central Market to New Orleans,
Katherine/pearl

Dear Whole Foods,
Widen your aisles in the Union Square store. It is the most convenient to me but I often walk in and soon right back out because the bumper car games you have to play with people and carts drive me into an uncontrollable rage. The store on the Bowery is much more spacious and enjoyable but more out of the way for many people. Union Square is a transit hub; the store should be able to accommodate the flow. I'm perfectly fine with my neighborhood store most of the time, but sometimes there are things you can only get at Whole Foods and the experience makes me want to kill myself.

WF- Sandy Springs, GA location-

It would be fantastic to walk within ten feet of the seafood department and NOT breathe in the pleasant reek of low tide.

Thank you.

Better seafood and start selling pork belly!

you're expensive, and my college budget doesn't like it

i go to nugget instead or berkeley bowl.

Dear Wholefoods:

There are two of you in my hometown of Ann Arbor, and none of you in my new hometown of Lansing (thank G*D).

In Ann Arbor, you are an overpriced joke of a grocery store (most of the store is taken up by prepared foods), and I can find everything you carry at local chains (like Meijer) or local small businesses. All I have to do is spend time at the Farmer's Market, and in the off season, in the markets of Kerrytown. This is also true in Lansing, where we have awesome places like Horrocks.

You have also spawned many wannabes, like Plum Market, in Ann Arbor.

Please stop charging me $12 for a salad with barely anything on it. No, steel cut oatmeal isn't a big enough deal to charge that much money for it.

I do love a particular sandwich you make, but for $7 I can buy the ingredients locally and bypass your shitty parking lots and crazy foreign-car driving nutbag regulars :)

Dear Whole Foods (manhattan):

Please teach your female employees how to bag for their customers that have to take public transportation. As a girl, I get really annoyed when the cashiers (always the girls) put five things in a bag and then try to give me another one to fit 4 more items - "HEY! I have to get on the train and a bus, you see me with another bag, where is the third one going to go? sheesh!"

Stop wasting the bags and teach them how to stuff one properly.

Also, PLEASE find another way to stack your bok choy. Everytime I pull one out of the stack, the leaves are shredded.

Dear Whole Paycheck (Tucson...Speedway/Country Club location),

When you turned my humble Wild Oats into Whole Paycheck, I was very excited. I used to go to the Whole Paycheck on rare occasions with my parents back in Los Angeles, and I loved the variety and the amazing meat and seafood sections. The prepared foods blew my mind.

However, I am having a hard time seeing what's different. The selections haven't changed much at all. The store design didn't change AT ALL. No increase in size. Just an increase in prices.

But the one thing that angers me the most...is the sushi chef. I love sushi. I could eat it every day, and I've been eating the raw stuff since I was 8. I am used to going to Japanese grocery stores in LA and getting GOOD prepared sushi for cheap. Now, I think your store has the best prepared sushi in town.

However, when I stop by your sushi counter at, say, 12:45pm on a weekday, your studious sushi chef never has anything done and on the counter. Um...hi...lunchtime? I hate asking you to prepare a box for myself and my roommate, and you seem so annoyed.

Here's a thought - FINISH THE DAMN SUSHI ON TIME AND PUT IT IN THE DAMN REFRIGERATOR CASE!!!!

Thank you.

Dear Whole Foods,

Please be more like Central Market. I will cry when I have to leave Texas, just because of the awesome grocery experiences I have had there.

Wegman's is a pretty store that carries a lot of the same stuff a regular grocery store carries at higher prices. The prepared foods section is filled with tasty food.

However, Wegman's may be even more expensive than WFM in my area. At the very least prices are comparable. In fact, out here on the East Coast, TJ's & WFM offer simlar (or same) price for many of my favorite packaged items. Wegman's carries amazingly little organic produce, so I end up more at TJ's & WFM even though I drive by Wegman's daily.

My boyfriend is a WFM employee who gets a discount (and yes, we met at WFM, so I'm indebted), so once in a while we splurge on something overpriced. But normally we stick to basics at and I wishwishwish (and have asked in writing, with no response) they would expand their bulk section to be more like the one in Berkeley, CA (bulk teas, spices!). I guess East Coast suburbia residents don't like the idea of buying bulk. Who knew?

With this many apparently loyal shoppers willing to fork over their whole paychecks, why is your stock (WFMI) in the crapper?

Kudos to runrgrrl!

It funny to hear people complain about high prices yet, they seem to be the ones demanding fair trade, organic, living wage produce! If thats really what you want then yes a single apple will cost $3. Thats why I love low prices, it allows me to use my salary to donate to charities of my choosing, and yes I am aware of the slavery type conditions of some produce workers and that is not what I am advocating. But at the same time, some of these new fangled hippie ideals are simply impractical, and their consequences are the outrageous prices of "Whole paycheck" or wherever hippies shop these days.

@pksmash agreed! Wegmans is much better than WF. That said I love the WF beer store near the Bowery. Growlers!

@twoojoe - I agree with you - some people do seem to want it all, and they want it cheap and NOW. Although, I'm a hippie (a real one from the 60's - not one of those faux hippies in $250 artfully shredded jeans and $80 designer tee shirts) and I don't see too many people like me shopping at WF. I do see a lot of well-to-do soccer moms and spoiled trust fund kids. Then they get into their Hummers and drive off to their McMansions. They're all about fair trade, organic and green, as long as it doesn't cost them anything or inconvenience them. They also don't have a clue about the economics of organic farming.

I do all of my shopping at Trader Joe's, Henry's Market (a San Diego chain) and local farmer's markets. I'll gladly buy most of my clothes at Target and wear them practically forever so that I can afford the higher prices that the farmers need to charge for their efforts. I only shop at WF for a couple of things. One is apple pectin powder for pate de fruits, which no other store in my area stocks. The other is for cheese, if I'm planning a special dinner. But I go in knowing that I'll pay a small fortune for it. Fortunately, the farmer's markets in the San Diego area are starting to carry locally made cheeses too so I won't have to go to WF for anything but my biannual apple pectin powder purchase.

Please stock carob product other than the chips in the baking aisle. Also, feature more local company's foods.

@mookie - thanks for the opportunity to rant about something that has bothered me for a long time! :)

@Paula.. what Whole Foods location is this that you're talking about? i've been to several now and had nothing but good experiences, so it's very surprising to hear what bad experience you've had.. definitely not the norm for Whole Foods in general

I tried to like you, I really did. But Trader Joe's and Wegmans will always be my first loves...