It's obvious that gourmet grocery chain Whole Foods is working to corner the local fancy supermarket market, so to speak. In their short NYC tenure, the retailer has caused many other chains—Gristedes, Food Emporium—to shutter or totally revamp. Courtesy of a thread in the investing/stock section of Yahoo! Message Boards, we learn that granola-crunchy chain Wild Oats, headquartered in Boulder, CO, might be opening 15 stores in the New York metro area within the next year. A possible threat to Whole Foods' domination? Well, the story doesn't end there.
Yesterday, it was announced that Whole Foods will be buying its smaller rival for a cool $565 million. Organic domination comes in so many flavors these days.
· Oats to expand into NY metro area [Y! Finance Boards]
· Whole Foods inks $565M deal for Wild Oats [CNN]
BONUS WHOLE FOODS CHATTER:
· Park Slopers Petition for a Greener Whole Foods [Brooklyn Record]
· Downhill alert: Whole Food's Union Square [Chowhound]