Word: gourmets
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...prime market is Birkenstock-wearing proles hankering for tofu and lentils. It's courting health-conscious consumers of every stripe who want to eat more grains, fruits and vegetables (but not exclusively) and cut back on fat and sweets (but not too much). Marketers are playing up the gourmet aspects of their products--and charging premium prices. "A lot of companies don't want to sell an organic product with a tree-hugger image anymore," says Michelle Barry, an analyst with the Hartman Group, a Seattle-based market-research firm. "They're marketing these products for their taste appeal...
...does it better than Whole Foods. Its co-founder, Mackey, 48, is a six-time college dropout who grew up on TV dinners, got bitten by the health-foods bug in his 20s and built his business by combining the concepts of health-foods store and gourmet market. Mackey is the son of an accounting professor, and despite his left-leaning roots, he is a carnivorous capitalist. Starting with a single Whole Foods store in Austin in 1980, he took 12 years to expand to five outlets. But after taking his firm public in 1992, he steadily opened new stores...
...foods," says A.C. Gallo, vice president for East Coast operations. "We try to educate people, but we're not going to preach that the only thing you can eat to be healthy is brown rice and vegetables." Research indicates that Whole Foods' hard-core shoppers think of themselves as gourmets more than all-natural eaters, yet they are enticed by the healthy atmosphere. As a result, the firm started downplaying the healthy, ramping up the fresh and taking to heart what its regional managers were doing to court local yuppies. West Coast stores had a thriving gourmet-pizza business...
Traditional grocery chains, saddled with flat sales and shriveled margins, find they need to sell more gourmet-health fare to compete against the likes of both Whole Foods and Wal-Mart, the nation's largest grocer. Regional supers such as Pratt's Food Supermarkets--a chain in the Oklahoma City, Okla., area--are fighting back with more organic dairy, meats and dry goods. Kroger, the nation's No. 2 grocer, has carved out "natural food" departments in nearly a third of its 2,400 stores and is expanding its private-label organic brand, which includes cereals and potato chips, with...
...relaxed from a day spent in the sun and sea. Soon we set sail again, accompanied by the intoxicating aroma of cooking tuna and roasting potatoes. Dinner was hearty and simple, which was just fine as during those days of utter relaxation I wanted nothing to do with gourmet meals and complicated sauces. After dinner we retreated to the comfortable chairs, pillows and mattresses piled on the foredeck to lose ourselves in the stars and watch the moon set over Selayar's hills...