Whole Foods or Whole Paycheck- a study.

Whole Foods is a chain grocery store that focuses on providing the least processed, most flavorful foods without preservatives or artificialness.  We have a Whole Foods in my town and most of my friends say, "I love, love, love Whole Foods but it costs SO much, I just can't shop there for everything."  I decided to do a quick comparative study based on my weekly shopping list.  My shopping list varies each week (obviously) but I thought this week had a nice smattering of products.  All products were priced at King Soopers and Whole Foods and all products in both stores are organic.  If identical items couldn't be found, I compared name brand to name brand or store brand to store brand.

So, as you can see here, Whole Foods cost $1.28 more overall.  This is about 21 cents extra per item that I bought.  Some might argue that your extra 21 cents buys you the "experience" of going to Whole Foods.  This is similar to the difference between WalMart and Target.  At Target, you pay for the experience-wider aisles, brighter/cleaner stores etc.  I'd say that we can chalk this up to how much you value the experience of grocery shopping.  I find Whole Foods to be extremely crowded but I do like wandering in the bakery area for the experience.  Also, the bag they gave us at Whole Foods broke before we got out of the store...punishment for not bringing our own!