Ridiculous: Whole Foods Blocked from Acquiring Wild Oats
This is ridiculous. Whole Foods is being restricted from acquiring Wild Oats on the grounds that Whole Foods is an organic food store and that such consolidation would give it an uncompetitive advantage in the organic food sector.
The problem is that Whole Foods is no longer just a specialty food store. They now compete with all the other big super market chains that are also beefing up their organic food offerings. Whole Foods has also diversified its products to offer more than just your regular tree hugger fare. They are literally a one-stop (albeit expensive) shop for a lot of people. How can Whole Foods be equipped to compete with giants like Safe Way and Star Market, if its status as a specialty grocer inhibits it from acquiring companies and growing?
This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on August 15, 2007 at 3:22 am Katharine Osborne wrote:
Whole Foods is good, but in the southwest they are facing major competition from Henry’s, Trader Joe’s, and my low cost favorite, Sunflower. It’s hardly at risk of becoming a monopoly!
on August 16, 2007 at 5:27 pm Chad Podoski wrote:
Judge refused FTC request to block merger