Seven outrageously expensive items to avoid at Whole Foods

These seven food items are outrageously expensive at Whole Foods. Save your money and buy them elsewhere.

|
Julie Jacobson/AP/File
In this June 24, 2015, file photo, a shopper leaves the Whole Foods Market store in New York's Union Square.

When it rains, it pours.

Not only is Whole Foods losing ground to other major grocery chains with cheaper organic and socially conscious offerings, but Whole Foods has also been slammed twice (first byCalifornia authorities and then by New York authorities) for overcharging its customers.

The CEOs of Whole Foods have openly admitted that some of their stores overcharged their customers in New York City and California for certain items. So to help you avoid spending your "Whole Paycheck," here are seven of the most outrageously expensive Whole Foods products to be wary of next time you're strolling their aisles.

1. Chicken Tenders

You may be thinking, "Come on, good ol' chicken tenders are neither exotic nor fancy! How can they be that expensive at Whole Foods?" And at $9.99 per pound of chicken tenders, this Whole Food product may seem harmless.

However, an investigation of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) in New York City found that customers were overcharged by $4.13, on average. From its sample, one package of chicken tenders was overpriced by $4.85. Now that's some expensive "air!"

2. Air Plants

Air can be very expensive indeed at Whole Foods. Take for example, these air plants that cost $69.99 each at their store in Atlanta, Georgia. The main selling point of these southeast succulents is that they are grown locally. However, you could find similar local plants at a nearby Pike Nursery for just a few dollars.

3. Morel Mushrooms

Let's talk about the Cadillac of mushrooms. Morel mushrooms command a premium because they are hard to cultivate (only grow on decaying organic material, mostly in forests after a fire), to pick (some states require a permit to pick morel mushrooms in national forests), and to distribute (very perishable).

There are premiums and there is the Whole Foods premium. Depending on type of morel mushroom, availability, location, and quality, you could expect to pay between $249.99 per pound and $421.99 per pound of morel mushrooms at Whole Foods! For example, this cook found morel mushrooms at $320 per pound at Whole Foods Del Mar in San Diego.

4. Emu Eggs

If you think that the most expensive type of egg that you can you find at Whole Foods is the one laid by a free-range chicken that has access to a pasture environment, eats organic feed, receives a diet supplement with omega-3 essential fatty acids, and is raised with roosters… then you haven't heard of emu eggs.

Local emu eggs to be more exact. Shoppers have spotted these green, prehistoric-looking eggs at Whole Foods starting at $29.99 per unit and reaching $34.99 per unit.

5. Saffron

At $65 for the highest quality crop, saffron can demand a higher price than that for gold. Some Iranian saffron producers report prices of $2,000 per kilo (roughly 2.2 pounds).

At some Whole Foods stores, you can find this expensive spice at $3,196 per pound. This means that $7.99 would get you only 0.0025 pounds of saffron!

6. Anything With Kale

People often taunt Whole Foods about its ridiculous products. The most cited example is anything that is born out of the kale craze. While fresh kale has an average retail price of $2.81 per pound, anything kale-ified at Whole Foods gets a hefty premium.

Here are some examples of Kale-steins that are 100% real:

7. Asparagus Water

A cartoon about a probiotic asparagus at $17.99 per bunch may have been too prophetic. In a true case of life imitating art, a Whole Foods store in California recently came up with "asparagus water" (three stalks of asparagus in a bottle of water) and decided to charge $5.99 per 16 fl. oz. bottle.

People on social media were quick to call out Whole Foods about this outrageous idea, and a spokesperson explained that the product was made incorrectly and has since been pulled from shelves.

Now to be fair: certain foods are actually cheaper at Whole Foods. Just make sure you're not washing them down with asparagus water.

This article is from Damian Davila of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Seven outrageously expensive items to avoid at Whole Foods
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Saving-Money/2015/0917/Seven-outrageously-expensive-items-to-avoid-at-Whole-Foods
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe