Food is an essential part of people’s everyday lives. Where people buy their food is deeply affected by cultural influences and available finances. This study will explore an East Lansing Whole Foods, a Lansing Farmer’s Market and an Allendale Meijer’s. After dedicating a day to studying each store, there were obvious differences in what type of consumers the shops wished to attract. The purpose of this study was to expose differences between the location’s consumers and the shops themselves.
The Whole Foods I visited in East Lansing was selling more than just food; it was selling ethical values. The store was packed with messages that were clearly meant to make the consumer feel as though they were buying the best possible foods available. The word “organic” was practically stamped across every product and sign in the store. Additionally, The Whole Foods further assured consumers they were purchasing top of the line products with the messages they spread throughout the store. Above the whole foods dairy aisle, there was the label “Core Values” as well as many signs flashing words such as health, organic and wholesome. With the promises of wholesome food came an increase in price. The prices throughout the store, even the sale prices, made a low-income college student such as myself shy away from making any purchases. The cheapest food available was the processed freezer food. However, the Whole Foods only offered one small aisle of these processed options. This implied the store was intentionally meant for those with a bigger budget. The people who shopped there reinforced that this was a pricier grocery store. I was the only young consumer in the store. Most everyone in the store was thin, older, and dressed in well manufactured attire. In Julie Guthman’s ethnography about organic food, she noted how “Alternative food institutions have tended to cater to relatively well-off customers” (431). The Whole Foods “well-off customers” considered the term “organic” to mean the foods were higher quality and healthier, therefore making the foods worth the higher prices. The Whole Foods appealed to people of a higher socioeconomic status who could afford the high prices and who also wanted to purchase what they considered to be exceptional food.
The Lansing Farmer's Market I visited was an outdoor market that was very small and very empty. The market was, similarly to Whole Foods, selling an idea. The few tents that were set up had large signs behind them displaying words like organic and farm fresh. In Rachel Hertz’s That’s Disgusting, the author mentions how thinking that foods, such as meat, are evil makes these foods revolting. The opposite is true for foods as well. The Farmer’s Market was selling moral foods by advertising that its produce and animals were harvested on ethical farms. The market’s key selling point was that it sold foods people could feel good about eating. The Farmer’s Market had a large variety of produce and a few out of place products such as honey and chicken. The lack of variety was likely one of the reason so few attended the market. The prices at the market were less expensive than the Whole Foods but more expensive than the Meijer’s. The market, unlike Whole Foods and Meijer's, also lacked any sale foods. The few shoppers in attendance were older patrons dressed in relatively nice looking jackets. This implied that the market largely catered to financially well off adults in search of organic foods. The Farmer's Market had more of a community feel to it than that of a grocery store. Many vendors and shoppers were having causal conversations. A vendor had even chatted with me about the weather. The Farmer's Market appealed to financially well off people in search of a community shopping experience in addition to organic foods.
The Meijer’s in Allendale selling point was value rather than quality. While the Market and Whole Foods proudly displayed their organic origins, the Meijer's flaunted its low prices. The word “sale” was displayed in big bold letters at every corner of the enormous store. These cheap prices were attached to cheap foods. The fruits and vegetable section of Meijer's was about as big as the market and smaller than the Whole Foods despite being a store that was greatly larger than both grocers combined. The rest of Meijer’s food was predominantly processed. A large portion of the store was aisles upon aisles of frozen processed foods and even more aisles of dry processed foods. The low prices and cheap foods clearly drew in those with a lower budget. Many of the patrons were nearby college students or obese adults. In the documentary A Place at the Table, it is mentioned how obesity and poverty go hand in hand. People who are poorly nourished tend to eat cheap foods that cause them to gain weight. The presence of so many portly shoppers at Meijer’s enforced that many of Meijer’s shoppers had low incomes. The Meijer’s appealed to people who were in search of cheap food options.
The Farmer's Market and Whole Foods were selling quality whereas the Meijer's was selling value. Since the market and Whole Foods sold organic foods, their prices tended to be higher than Meijer’s, causing them to attract a wealthier clientele. The Meijer’s low prices drew in custumers with a limited budget. Paired with the low priced foods were low quality foods. The Meijer’s was selling far more processed foods than the Whole Foods and Farmer’s Market combined. Both the Whole Foods and Meijer’s brought in more customers than the market. This was due to the fact that both the mainstream stores had far more options than the Farmer’s Market. The one main factor the market had that the Meijer’s and Whole Foods did not was a community shopping experience. Vendors and shoppers regularly engaged in a conversation at the market, but at Whole Foods and Meijer’s, people did not interact until checkout time. Overall, each establishment offered their own unique shopping experience that appealed to different kinds of people.