
Natural and organic supermarket
Whole Foods really wants to be there for you during tough times. In fact, the retailer wants to give you a deal so badly that it's posted a printable online
coupon for $5 off.
The discount is part of a new Whole Foods value guide called the Whole Deal.

The word "locavore" — only eating foods produced within 100 miles of where you live — was nonexistent a few years ago, but has since become a part of mainstream vocabulary, particularly in cities like San Francisco and New York.
But a recent piece by
Conservation magazine, entitled
"The Problem of What to Eat," questions the status quo of whether buying local really does reduce one's carbon emission. It's obvious that local produce has a lower carbon footprint when compared to air-freighted foods, but it's actually unclear when comparing local foods to those arriving by sea, rail, or road.

Yesterday after reading about how
supermarkets are shrinking, I got to thinking about the size of grocery stores. Just because a store is bigger, doesn't always mean it's better: Last Friday my sister went to the super-Safeway to pick up dried garbanzos, and they didn't have any! However, the Mexican specialty store closer to my house carries all kinds of dried beans.

In a world of oversize food — genetically modified apples, super-size fries, and venti coffees — one thing may be coming up smaller: grocery stores.
According to the
New York Times, grocers across the country from
Safeway to
Wal-Mart are turning to stores with smaller square footage. Supermarket retailers, like Jewel-Osco, who is building a smaller-format store in Chicago, are hoping to capitalize on an untapped segment of time-starved shoppers who are looking for an affordable meal to go without menu prices, or who just want to pick up a handful of grocery items.

Recently grocers and restaurant chains have started to
employ a sophisticated type of digital advertising. The videos and images influence a shopper's decisions as they browse supermarket aisles or wait in line to pay. At select
Dunkin' Donuts in New York, people who order coffee in the morning see ads promoting breakfast items at the register.

Earlier this month, Whole Foods reported
losses of $18.4 million for its UK stores.
In addition to its
domestic struggles, the Austin-based natural foods chain has been unsuccessful in its attempt to snag a piece of the UK market share. In the last year, the chain has opened six stores in Britain.

For those of you who've raved about the
Whole Foods private-label 365 brand, I've got good news for you: There are more of these brands coming your way.
Fellow grocery giant
Safeway has
plans to go national with two of its house brands, O Organics and health-conscious line Eating Right. So far, both lines have limited market, but will expand nationally this Fall.

Meet the latest in grocery-store technology, the supermarket checkout scale that identifies produce. Although self-checkout systems have been around for a while, this new scale requires no scanning. Instead the machine snaps a quick picture of the produce that is placed on the scale.

Earlier this week the
New York Times reported that
Whole Foods is in
the midst of a store makeover. With the economic crisis and the increasing price of food, the expensive grocer is attempting to rebrand itself as a value store along the lines of Costco and Trader Joe's.
I've always found the prices at Whole Foods to be high and stopped shopping there months ago.