In the book aisle, you will find Al Gore, Mohammed Yunus and solar-powered radio sets on the shelves. A long canyon walled with vats, 200 of them, full of every flour, pulse and bean I have ever heard of, waiting for you to fill your own bag on an honesty-box basis. There are mini-restaurants dotting the spaces between the aisles: a sushi bar, the trattoria, the Living Foods salad counter. The look is opulent, more Harrods food hall than Waitrose clinical. You are encouraged to fossick and chatter as you might in a grocer's shop - remember those? This is no strip-lit warehouse. There is a sense of ease and wholesome fun - Disney does Borough Market. ![]() This is not just about the sheer lavishness - the 600 cheeses, the 20 yards of fresh-fish counter, the 32 different freshly made sausages from "free-roam pigs" - but also a palpable sense that the notion of mass retailing of food has been turned on its head. Quite simply, they are the most gorgeous supermarkets I have ever seen. Or being guilt-tripped by a viciously priced-up banana in Sainsbury's. Selling organic doesn't have to mean an unwashed carrot in a shop smelling of mould and patchouli. Whole Foods' trick is to marry green - even if it is a pretty soft version of green - with comfort. Whole Foods' arrival will take this tussle to another plane. This is why, with supplies becoming a problem as the boom accelerates, British chains have been so busy this winter shouting "greener than thou" at each other: Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's have all announced schemes to buy more local produce, reduce "food miles" and clean up their carbon. Both here and in the US, it is the fastest-growing sector in food retail. Sales of organic food have risen by more than 30% in the past two years. With this move, Whole Foods will enter the vicious fight that is British supermarket retailing right at the battleground's heart - the conscience-struck consumer. If it does well, there will be "a lot more", according to Mackey. At more than 80,000 sq ft, it will be the largest food store in the city centre. ![]() Now Whole Foods is coming to Britain: a "European flagship" shop opens in London in June, on three floors in the former Barkers department store in Kensington. In February, it swallowed its main rival, Wild Oats Markets, in a takeover worth half a billion dollars, adding another 110 stores to give it nearly 300 across north America. It generates twice the profit per square foot of any other US supermarket - and it is opening 20 new stores a year. He has also made the country's traditional supermarket chains sit up, not least because Whole Foods has outperformed all of them in recent years. As one organic vegetable farmer, a rare breed in Texas, told me: "You can't argue with one thing - if it wasn't for Whole Foods we'd still be handing out leaflets telling folk what organic is." ![]() There are many sceptics but there is no denying that through his green-tinged supermarket chain, Mackey has introduced the ethics of food supply to the American mainstream. There are a lot of signs in a Whole Foods Market - all part of making you feel like a better, healthier, happier shopper. "We believe in a virtuous circle embracing the food chain, human beings and mother earth," proclaims another sign at the store's entrance. "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet" is the slogan. His is a company "based on love, not on fear". But Mackey is more messianic in his quotes. John Mackey, the founder, chairman and CEO of the $5.6bn (£2.85bn) Whole Foods Market, piles it pretty and sells it nice. Pile it high, sell it cheap, the business plan of Tesco's founder Jack Cohen, remains the dominating ethos of the British trade. ![]() Whole Foods shops are supermarkets - but not as we know them. When I emerged clutching my trophies - a jar of alder wood-smoked sea salt, a cherimoya fruit "hand-picked in Mexico", a freshly baked organic knish - I wondered if doing the supermarket run would ever be the same again. "Couple got engaged here the other day," smiled the burly chef behind the counter, tossing up fresh tagliatelle with an organic heirloom tomato sauce. There were customers on dates: at the little trattoria near the cheese counter, a pair in their 20s told me they came to the supermarket most weeks for dinner. Even at nine in the evening, everyone in the shop - students, nurses, workers from the nearby State Capitol building, where George W Bush once ruled - seemed to want to be there. But shopping at America's only natural foods superstore chain is seductive in a way no British aisle-basher has ever known. You wouldn't get that sort of tosh at Tesco - they couldn't take the ridicule. 'Love where you shop!" proclaim the signs at the entrance to the vast branch of Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas.
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