Is too much choice a good thing?

Date Published:

13/09/2007

Janet Street-Porter loves to talk about food. And she was doing a lot of it for series 3 of the F Word. She tried to convince race goers in Newmarket to eat horse burgers and started a debate about whether force feeding geese to make foie gras was morally correct. In a series of exlusive features, Janet tells us what she really thinks about eating out, eating meat and eating ethically.

Isn't it about time we got got back to good, honest, locally grown grub?

The new Whole Foods Market opened in Kensington a few weeks ago (June 2007) to masses of publicity, and pictures of huge piles of polished apples, gleaming pomegranates and dewy lettuces. We were told there were 21 types of tomato on sale, 40 kinds of bread,17 different varieties of coffee bean. It was touted as a temple to everything organic - 7,500 square metres and three floors of the ultimate retailing experience for foodies.

It is the first European branch of the £2.85 billion American retailing chain, which makes much of its organic credentials. In fact, less than 40% of what’s on offer is organic, and a huge amount of it has been air freighted in from all over the world. One foodie website described it as ‘Harrods with a conscience’ - but is it?

The company’s motto is 'Whole Foods Whole People Whole Planet' - but they are ruthless when it comes to competition and closed the local branch of Fresh and Wild (which they owned) in order to drive customers to their Kensington High Street superstore - so much for reducing our carbon footprint. More importantly, do we really need to choose from 40 kinds of sausages, 100 kinds of olive oil or 400 cheeses? In America, the land of the obese, people drive to places this size and stock up for a week at a time - in London there is no culture of doing that, and we already have to travel so far to and from work there’s precious little time left over to shop.

Too much choice is time-consuming and a bad thing. What I prefer is a smaller choice of really good food, chosen by someone with taste and attitude, not a faceless retailer making pyramids out of apples and bananas and presenting them as fashion artefacts rather than food. Life’s too short to agonise over which tomato to use - I want the one with the best flavour. And prices at Whole Foods Market are certainly no cheaper than anywhere else - in fact there have been plenty of complaints about the prices charged for takeaway food, where you serve yourself and are charged by weight - friends say it ends up costing double what they are used to paying.

I will still visit my local butcher, choose from meat that has been slaughtered locally, and buy my vegetables from a small retailer who has chosen them personally. But maybe you find looking at stacks of aubergines a turn-on, if so then this is your dream shopping experience!

Yours

JSP.

What do you think of Whole Foods Market? Let us know in the forum.