As an Australian I hear of things like Trader Joe’s and Wholefoods and feel very intrigued

33 comments

  2. Right now I’m in sprawling suburbia, and there’s a Trader Joe’s about 5 miles down the road. Wholefoods is right near there, and a regional chain called Wegmans is known for having a good selection of organic and health foods. But honestly I could just go to my local Shop-Rite which has organic options for pretty much everything, just a smaller selection.

    My previous home was in a more rural area, and we joined what’s called a “crop share” from a local family-owned farm. We’d pay something around $300 for the season, and every Monday you’d simply go to the farm between 9AM and 5PM and pick up a basket of freshly-picked vegetables. Early in the season (mid-April) there wouldn’t be much other than some Asparagus, but by the mid summer it’s way more food than your family can eat for a week. They were trying to send me home with a second basket full of kale alone, and I’d pass but still take 3 italian eggplants and a butternut squash. It was glorious and grocery store vegetables will never taste the same.

  3. Most grocery stores have organic options.

    Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have a higher level of them.

    You can find these options in every state but generally you will see more of it in metro areas since they have a larger market base that wants to buy these.

    Whole Foods is generally much more expensive than other grocery stores and from my opinion the value isn’t there. They’re hot food bar is really good though but otherwise I don’t think they are worth shopping at.

    Trader Joe’s is much more economical due to their business model. They have a much more limited selection and generally carry Trader Joe’s branded products. It’s like a more organic/health conscious Aldi.

  4. There’s a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe’s in Yuppieville, the next town over, though not in my town. Any run-of-the-mill supermarket will have an adequate selection of fresh produce, though, including organic if you want to spend extra money for no reason.

  5. Trader Joe’s isn’t necessarily known for their organics, or even fresh produce/meats in general. There’s no butcher or deli counter in any of the stores I’ve been to. Its all packaged and shipped into each store. Think Trader Joe’s as aslightly more upscale version of Aldi, assuming you have those in Aus.

    The products aren’t the cheapest. But they’re pretty budget friendly for the quality they provide. You can definitely find cheaper similar products at Aldi or the grocery store, though the quality may not be as good.

    Every major city and often neighborhoods or regions within a city/metro area will likely have at least a spring/summer farmers markets. Some in Indianapolis move indoors during the winter.

    Honestly I was shopping at grocery stores when I was in California this summer and I did not notice an appreciable difference in the quality of produce while I was there despite a lot of our produce being grown in CA. I’m sure the local farmers markets are great, but I just didn’t notice that impacting what is available within stores I visited.

  6. Citrus grows both in southern California and Florida. I assume if they can support citrus then majority of other plants can thrive.

    Bellingham is the most northern city in the contiguous 48 states and in western Washington we have a nice mild summer but our spring is cool into June for warm loving plants. The river valleys of western Washington are fertile.

    The Continental interior has a great growing season, mountain tops notwithstanding.

  7. California and liberal states have best access to them. They’re not easily accessible for minorities and no they’re not reasonably priced

  9. > which state has the best selection and access to them?

    California, no contest. Very easy to find organic stuff, especially in the parts of the state around the Bay Area and Sacramento. Grocery prices are higher than US average here but it’s a spectrum, you can find affordable options of very high quality if you know where to look.

    In the Berkeley there’s a grocery store of legend called Berkeley Bowl. Whole foods quality at regular grocery prices, with every kind of obscure fresh produce you can imagine. Place is a cornucopia. It’s easily the thing I miss most after having moved to San Francisco, but fortunately I can piece together decent options from farmers markets and local corner groceries here too.

  10. Every grocery store I go to has a fairly large organic selection of all sorts of fresh foods.

  11. Your average regional grocery store would have organic options available. Even Walmart and Target have some good options available. And they are basically everywhere.

    Trader Joe’s and Wholefoods are nice, but they aren’t available everywhere. I think my closest of either one is about 70 miles or so. A good hour and change driving. We have several local alternatives to both though. Some nice local owned health food stores and smaller grocery stores. Plus little markets that only sell produce that comes from local farms.

  12. They’re accessible almost anywhere. They typically cost more than non-organic because reasons. California and Florida have year-round growing seasons for produce and will typically have the lowest prices. Shipping organic bananas in February to Montana or Iowa costs money, which is reflected in pricing for the consumer.

  13. Whole Foods is an upscale, higher-priced retailer of organic, niche, natural groceries. It’s not ubiquitous in the US by any means, because people who can spend $10 for a pint of organic gelato or small piece of artisan cheese are not ubiquitous. It’s good if you can afford it, but the place is nicknamed Whole Paycheck for good reason.

    Trader Joe is mostly packaged / pantry / frozen stuff, organic or not, with small produce and meat sections. It’s more accessible than Whole Foods pricewise, and therefore caters to a broader market, but it’s nothing special healthwise.

    Even the most ordinary mainstream supermarket will have some “organic” goods for sale at a higher price than standard alternatives. There’s really nothing in it healthwise.

    in the US the product labeling regulations are a little loose — it doesn’t take much to earn a label like “All-Natural.” That doesn’t make a grocery item virtuous.

    Higher-earning communities have better selections for obvious reasons. It’s not a state-by-state thing, it’s a local-disposable-income thing.

  14. Very available in posh suburbs, reasonably priced, not so much. But then if you go super rural you can buy stuff directly from farmers on the side of the road in the warm months

  15. I have easy access to fresh, local organic produce here in San Diego. There are Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s (along with Sprouts and Jimbos) in nearby neighborhoods, but the main organic grocer in my neighborhood is a [grocery co-op](https://www.grocery.coop/food-coops/what-is-a-co-op). Their membership is cheap ($25 per year), and most other co-ops honor the my membership as well. There is also a year-round farmers market once a week in my neighborhood, so you can get local organic produce there too.

    As for price, organic is definitely more expensive than non-organic, so “reasonable” is a matter of opinion. I can afford it, so that’s what I try to buy.

  16. Every grocery store I’ve ever been in had organic food options, every grocery store is going to sell whole foods regardless of organic or not.

  17. Most grocery stores have an organic section.

    Save a Lot and Bravo are two that I can think of that don’t

  19. Is the most expensive and selective products designed to show off that you’ve made it in to the “correct” class anything that you’ve described? No. I can honestly say that is not going to happen.

    Once you’ve thrown the term “organic” in to a conversation you’ve pretty much doomed yourself to paying so much more for basically the same product. Oh you can find homegrown food everywhere and farmer’s markets are in fact still a thing. However having to be able to accurately say “I’ve never sprayed anything on my crops” or “I let those animals go free range” means you’re going to have to charge for the pain in the rear of the loss of a portion of your crops because you took a day off from ensuring each one didn’t have an infection or from the loss of a part of the herd because a coy-dog carried off a calf or two. That or you could just say you did, like a few farmers I know back home in Central NY, and profit immensely because some turtlenecks think that you actually spent all your time doing what you already know is pretty much just a waste of time.

    Just go to a farmer’s market or find someone local that sells by the road or something.

  20. I live in a small town (13,000) and the local grocery stores all have good produce available. I’d say that’s a win.

    I don’t buy “organic” stuff because it’s both overpriced and still has pesticides used on them anyway. Plus I’m a student so I buy what’s affordable.

  21. Most of those options are in every grocery store. Where I live, we also have 2 organic/vegan/vegetarian grocery stores and several smaller shops that offer the same. Before the pandemic I use to go to the smaller ones for their salad/ lunch bars but they’ve stopped doing that for now. I miss it.

  22. While food deserts do exist, only a small percentage of Americans deal with them. It’s unfortunate but, still, that means a larger percentage of people have readily access to organic products and the like. From large chains like The grocery store I work at carries of wealth of organic goods from dry goods, produce, meats, dairy items, beverages, and even cleaning supplies to name a few. I have never been to either store unfortunately but, I have heard people describe Whole Foods as rather pricey and depending on your lifestyle, not worth the price at all. However, I usually hear people rave about Trader Joe’s, their affordable prices, and unique varied selection of Trader Joe’s goods.

  23. >and which state has the best selection and access to them?

    This is asking redditors to understand the supplies of 50 separate regions serving 330,000,000 people living in 9,826,630 km2 of land.

  24. You can get a good selection in pretty much any grocery store. Whole Foods is a bit pricey. Trader Joe’s doesn’t really carry a lot of produce. here in AZ we have Sprouts, which I frequent fairly often.

  25. Not at all. Most “Organic” foods are either lab grown or processed.

    Kids in the suburbs of cities only have that available to them

  26. I work on consumer analytics in grocery if you have any more specific questions.

    And yes organic and whole foods are very much available in almost all but the smallest and value-leaning stores.

  27. The vast majority of grocery stores will have organic options. American food and groceries are absolutely nothing like Aussies think they are.

  28. Pretty much every grocery of a decent size has an organic selection.

    As for “reasonable price” it is a mixed bag. Organic foods are always more expensive just because it is a really inefficient way to grow food. So in my opinion organic food os never “reasonably priced.” It is premium priced with some decent deals possible here and there.

    The cheapest organic food will be in areas like California where they grow a lot of it or in places where there is local, in season, produce.

  29. It’s wealthier states for sure.

    I am in Massachusetts and rural. While I am a distance from a Whole foods and Trader joes (a half hour) but I have about 20 farms around me that sell their goods on site. So I can go to a farm 2 minutes from my house that has an adorable stand and they sell the food they grow. No corn left in the stand? The farm kids will run and pick some. It’s a little bit more expensive than a place like Walmart and some people just can’t (or imagine they cant) afford it. I can also get milk at the farm (and watch them bottle it and pet the cows), or buy bacon and beef and buy cheese.

    My state also has farm stands in urban settings and food stamps are accepted.

    I’ve been to some towns in the South and Midwest where the only “grocery” store they have is a dollar general. Poor people in poor states do NOT have good options.

  30. I belong to a CSA. “Community sponsored agricultural”. From about early May until Christmas I get a weekly box of fresh organic vegetables. Works out to about $40 a box? More expensive than conventional, cheaper than organic from a store.

    But I can go to any supermarket and get fresh organic produce.

    I also have access to an old hippie CO-OP, where everything is organic, fair trade, locally sourced. But I’d have to sell a kidney to afford those prices.

  31. Retail prices for organic whole foods are not cheap but in a lot of states you can buy directly from farms at market or through some sort of subscription service. Also our sprawling suburban human geography, while not particularly environmentally sustainable, does make home gardening fairly accessible to the average household.

  32. Yeah. They’re in every grocery store I’ve been in for years and are maybe half again more expensive than non-organic.

  33. They are accessible in wealthy urban areas and in the suburbs. Not really reasonably priced. Poorer urban areas are often referred to as “nutritional deserts” because of the lack of fresh produce, whole-foods and minimally processed options.
    California has the best selection simply because of its size and climate. Hard to grow organic crops in Minnesota in Jan.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like