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by TheLoneTechNerd 2569 days ago
Yeah I'm honestly not sure why people would be surprised at this comparison - Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are specialty stores. Nobody goes into them just to buy a head of lettuce.

Trader Joe's has their own in-store brands for tons of products, which has spawned various guides on what should/shouldn't be bough there (https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/save-money/what-to-buy-at-tr... for example). CVS, on the other hand, is a far more general store. They both sell food, but they're not in the same market segment - so the comparison is strange.

4 comments

>Nobody goes into them just to buy a head of lettuce.

wtf are you talking about? I do this (with other greens and vegetables). If anything, the people shopping at WF/TJ don't want a head of lettuce because it's a stupid product, but I think you're using that as an example...but using head of lettuce just makes me believe you don't understand the demographic.

I don't live in the US, but I've been to Whole Foods when visiting and certainly felt like a perfectly normal grocery store, not too different from most other grocery stores I've been to. What makes it a specialty store and why wouldn't you go there to buy a head of lettuce?
"Whole Foods" has earned its nickname of "Whole Paycheck" (https://www.fastcompany.com/90305918/whole-foods-is-becoming...) although they've tried various ways of combating this, some mentioned in that article
Whole Foods started out as an upscale/organic grocery store, but now they're mostly just Amazon's grocery store.
I know a lot of people who do all their shopping at Trader Joe’s.
I know a lot of people that don't. Now we can have an anecdote duel!
The claim was “nobody does.” I responded with “someone does.” An anecdote is sufficient proof here.
Does CVS have lettuce?