I hear people say that, but I keep seeing things that are cheaper at Whole Foods than they are at Safeway. Identical products, like Endangered Species brand 88% dark chocolate and Racer 5 IPA beer are cheaper at my local Whole Foods than they are at Safeway. $3.29 vs $3.99 and $4.99 vs $5.99, respectively. Their produce and meat may be more expensive, but appears to be of higher quality.
I'm not actually sure how much more expensive Whole Foods is compared to a place like Safeway.
The two stores deal with very different tagret markets and have very different economics. Whole Foods shoppers are willing to spend way more on produce, which is usually very low margin, so they don't need to make up the profit on their other items. Compare, for example Vons and Pavilions, which are owned by the same company. In my town we have a Vons literally across the street from Pavilions and while their prices for alcohol are the same, stuff like produce, coffee, and cereal can have a huge price differences even from the same vendor. Likewise, Trader Joes has the cheapest and best eggs, milk, and other staples in my general area, despite being overall more expensive.
When it comes to produce or meat, I have never seen anything at Whole Foods that would be more expensive at a low end grocery.
Trade Joe's entire reason for existence is that most of their stuff, both packages and produce. is cheaper than other area stores. There are a private label store.
This is a common myth. I've concluded Trader Joe's exists to give a veneer of guilt-free-ness to buying junk food. Avoid the cheese and meat at all costs.
Trader Joe's is great for prepared meals, but they are absolutely the worst grocer with regard to meat and produce. Often substantially worse than discount grocers like Krogers or Smart and Final.
Mostly quality, but also pricing. IMO the meat is average price and the produce is maybe a little cheaper, but the quality of both is generally very poor, especially the meat. I've had meat that was a few days away from going rancid from several different Trader Joe's locations.
Do you have a source on that? Other than a few staples (broth, grains, sauces, eggs, milk, etc) my local Trader Joes stores are definitely not cheaper than their local competitors, especially not the ethnic markets a few miles away. Their website marketing copy says so in a roundabout way but I shop at several Trader Joes flagship stores (including the original in Pasadena and the massive ones in south Florida) and that hasn't been true for at least a decade for produce. Their frozen foods like pizza and whatnot seem equivalent but definitely not their produce (20 cents a bannana!?)
Your experience definitely does not mirror mine. Where I live, there's a WF literally across the street from a Safeway. I've extensively comparison-shopped, and have found that WF's produce (I don't eat meat, sorry) is always cheaper than Safeway's, and there's lots more selection. In general, the local WF is cheaper for anything shopping the perimeter. Packaged goods are more expensive, and often not brand-for-brand comparable owing to WF's banned ingredients.
Where do you live? My experience comes from wealthy suburbs in Los Angeles and Miami as well as the Bay Area in general but different markets are different.
There can be many effects in play like marketing, staffing, and real estate prices. The Vons I mentioned is actually getting more expensive while the Pavilions is getting cheaper because the Vons cut back on cashiers. The longer lines have caused many of my friends and I to start shopping at Pavilions, which is causing a death spiral as Vons tries to charge more for produce just so they can pay the overhead on the building (the Vons location costs twice as much in rent as the Pavilions because of lease terms and the outdoor mall it's in, despite being across the street).
I would imagine that different markets make a huge difference.
My only two points of reference are Denver, CO and Kansas City, MO.
In Kansas City, Whole Foods produce and dairy prices were anywhere from 100-200% more than their Price Chopper / Hen House / Hy-Vee equivalents. Meat was marked up around 150% from their commodity supermarket price with a marked increase in quality and variety.
Denver has a roughly 30% higher cost of living than KC, and here the Whole Foods / Sprouts produce and dairy goods prices are competitive to slightly-higher than the King Soopers (local Kroger subsidiary) / Safeway prices. Meat is marked up around 100% from the commodity supermarket price, but with the same distinction in quality and variety.
This is all anecdotal and subject to my terrible aggregated memories of shopping trips, but this subject is fascinating to ponder.
Those sorts of things are loss leaders. If you pick 20 random items at Whole Foods, you see a 30-50% price difference.
My sister is a Whole Foods acolyte. She spends like $6 a gallon for shirt dated, ultra pasteurized milk because While Foods. Same product made in the same dairy at the local store for normals is like $2.79/g.
I used to like whole foods for the cheese and hot bar. But as they made the prepared food shittier and local groceries upped the cheese game, it's just a ripoff.
I'm not actually sure how much more expensive Whole Foods is compared to a place like Safeway.