I don't shop WF anymore because it's too far away from me and too danged expensive, and I'm really unimpressed with their selection of organic produce. If my small, locally owned health food store can manage to provide a large selection of exclusively organic produce, why can't WF, with their national distribution network and their market power? Further, for all they talk about buying locally, I've never seen local meats in there. I know there are a *lot* of local farms providing pastured meat here in Southeastern Pennsylvania. A whole lot. I've bought from a number of them directly. My local hfs carries almost exclusively local meat, and most of it's pastured - and most of it's far less expensive than anything WF carries.
I do hit Trader Joe's once in a while. They're much closer to me than WF, so I get tempted in even though I feel guilty about it.
I find that fresh stuff at TJs is really suspect. I've had their cheeses go moldy on me within a couple of days more than once. My girls are utterly addicted to their organic hummus, it's the only brand they'll eat now that they've tried it. Four times now, I've had it ferment and bulge the package within a day or two. They're great about taking returns, really great, but since I'm in there kind of randomly, I rarely remember to bring these things along with me to return. The fruits and vegetables are so-so on freshness. Anything you can touch and smell is usually ok - loose apples, bananas, avocados. But, most of their produce is under plastic. I don't trust that right off the top because I can't smell it, but also, experience tells me that a lot of TJs produce is not very fresh. So, when it comes to produce, I mostly use them for cheap avocados and bananas. I think the produce is fresher at the TJs I've shopped at in Arizona, and I've been told that other west coast TJs are better as well, so maybe it's just a Pennsylvania thing? Are TJs all corporate owned or franchised?
Furthermore, TJs is *not* a health food store. They are a specialty food store. They have no compunction about selling foods with hfcs, phos, artificial ingredients, preservatives, etc. They claim that their private label stuff has no artificial ingredients, but I've found vanillin in a number of their candies. So, you have to be a careful label reader there.
It also bugs me that they will trial a name brand product for a while, and if it's popular, they will start selling it private label. In most cases, it seems utterly identical, which seems to indicate they're contracting private label foods from the same manufacturer who was making the name brand product. Not a bad thing... except that the manufacturer gets less money for it that way, presumably. Or does the distributer get cut out only, which isn't so bad? I wish they'd be more upfront about that. In any case, I do wish they'd reveal their manufacturers so we can shop ethically. I do boycott a lot of big manufacturers.
Basically, TJs is good for a few novelty things, and occasionally for cheap stuff. I think I could, if I didn't care about freshness or the whole manufacturer ethics thing, do all our shopping there, and it would be primarily organic. But, between all those issues and the fact that I *do* try to stay primarily local for our food, we really only go in there for a few things (and other than the avocados, bananas and hummus, it's mostly guilt things - candy and crackers
)
I greatly prefer to shop at local health food stores. My local hfs carries exclusively organic produce, plus a lot of local dairy and meat products, including raw milk and meat from truly pastured animals (and I've literally met these farmers). They carry a lot of local produce in season. They are always seeking out more local providers for food. They don't carry anything with hfcs or phos, or anything artificial. And, they know me by name