Last time we chatted about Whole Foods Market, they had just announced their acquisition of Wild Oats. I followed-up that announcement with some opinionated implications sure to result from acquiring their largest competitor.
There have been a few notable happenings since then, such as …
On June 6th, Whole Foods Market will open their first branded location in London. A few years ago Whole Foods purchased the London-based Fresh & Wild grocery chain, but this marks the opening of the first Whole Foods Market branded location. And as with their recent openings in the States, this London location at the Barkers Building on Kensington High Street will be MEGA-SIZED. Its three stories tall, spanning 80,000 square feet, and Whole Foods is spending about $7.0 million-dollars in fiscal ’07 to bring this London location to life. London has seen nothing like this from a grocery store.
Lily Rockwell of the Austin American-Statesman shares more insights on the Whole Foods “London Invasion”. You can also learn more about the Kensington Whole Foods London location from this online magazine (PDF) published by Whole Foods.
That’s the good news. The bad news is … WFMI stock has been languishing for months now. Q2 financials acerbated the situation further by disappointing the Wall Street types. Plus, the Federal Trade Commission has delayed, for the third time, its approval of the Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger. Not sure what to make of this. Obviously, there is some hiccup in the approval process as someone at the FTC may feel this merger creates an anticompetitive retail atmosphere. (Hmm…)
On a different bent … Whole Foods Market began podcasting last year and now they are video blogging. SECRET INGREDIENT is the name of their vlog and it’s a well-produced show worthy of your viewing. Learn more about the “secret ingredient” of Prosciutto by viewing this…
RSS Readers … click here to view the Prosciutto video.
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