Dear bloggers,

I went over to the fresh grocer this weekend thinking I could find my usual stuff that I get from whole foods and was very dissappointed. I guess I was under the impression that this was a healthy store with most if not all of the stock being organic or whole. It was just another supermarket to me. What is so special about fresh grocer? Is there anything that sets it apart from shoprite or pathmark???

It's just a name. Do you think you'll find a path to the mark of the item at Pathmark? Do you think that you can't shop wrong at ShopRite? Do you think the way to thriftness is at Thriftway? Do you think it's safer to shop at Safeway? Do you think the only thing they sell at PigglyWiggly are pork products? Does royalty really own King Kullen? Maybe only huge products are sold at Giant?

Actually, what sets both this chain and Pathmark apart from their rivals is their willingness to operate stores in less-affluent neighborhoods the major chains shy away from. And they make money off these stores too.

Germantown is nice, but its demographics are just a bit too downscale for Whole Foods. So, apparently, were those in the area immediately west of the Penn campus, which is why WFM rebuffed Penn's overtures to open in the new garage/supermarket complex it was building at 40th and Walnut as part of its effort to jump-start revitalization in U-City. So Penn turned to the operator of what had been known as the Drexeline supermarket in Upper Darby, who was willing to open a store on the site -- and one that would be a notch above the typical city supermarket.

The store that opened closely resembles the Upper Darby store in format, combining a prepared food court with a standard supermarket (plus a selection of natural foods in a nod to local tastes). It was a hit from the day it opened, and it apparently did so well that the owner has opened -- and continues to open -- new stores in underserved city neighborhoods.

There's a new-from-the-ground-up Freshgrocer at 56th and Market that is bigger than the 40th and Walnut store but otherwise resembles it in its offerings, except:

--the store carries halal meats (there's a sizable Muslim population in the vicinity)
--the store has a large selection of Caribbean and Hispanic items (there's also a sizable West Indian population in the area)

A third Freshgrocer at 54th and Chester occupies an existing store building that another chain vacated. It lacks the prepared foods court, but is otherwise clean and well stocked.

The chain is building another new store adjacent to La Salle's campus in Olney as part of a shopping center being developed by the university, and I've heard that the Freshgrocer will replace the Super Fresh that had been the anchor tenant in Progress Plaza from its opening in 1971 until the store closed two years ago; the new store will be larger than the Super Fresh it replaced.

Oh -- they're also opening new stores in the 'burbs too; a large one opened in St. Davids, near Villanova, last summer. But -- judging from this post -- their main interest appears to be serving city shoppers in neighborhoods that could use a decent supermarket. If I'm not mistaken, Germantown lost its supermarkets a few years ago. So it's not Whole Foods? It's still a valuable addition to the community.

Maybe you had heard the story about the Penn store. I worked in the University Relations office at the time, and I know we spun the details to make it sound like this store was a Whole Foods Lite. It wasn't, but that's no crime.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"Jazz and blogging are both intimate, improvisational, and individual -- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both." --Andrew Sullivan, "Why I Blog," The Atlantic, November 2008

MarketStEl, thanks for sticking up for Fresh Grocer. I lived in University City when it first opened and even though I was fine with the Thriftway on 43rd it was a welcome addition to the area.
As someone who grew up in working-middle class surroundings and still chooses to live in those surroundings despite her education and the wealth it supposedly should afford me, I have to say that I think this whole organic movement is a load. Whole Foods? More like whole paycheck. The movement instead should be to provide better quality food at prices that working people-- the people who are most likely not to have access to the best health care-- can afford.

Then again, as someone in another thread once pointed out, complaints about a lack of organic food purveyors are what could be called "first world" complaints. Gotta love that gentrification.

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A few things:

SuperFresh closed the Plaza about 7 years ago at least. As for Germantown losing it's super markets, that was never the case. The Super Fresh burned down in 96, but the ShopRite was a block away. When the ShopRite closed due to the owner retiring, the PathMark and Sav-A-Lot were still open, again, only a block away. On top of that, there is an Acme not that far away in Mt Airy, as well as an Acme and ShopRite in nearby Roxborough, as well as a PathMark on City Line Avenue. If one doesn't have a car, some of these stores may be a distance, but for those who had vehicular transportation, these stores could be reached in 10 minutes, which is the same travel time for anyone living in the East Falls section who needs to shop for groceries.

Thanks for the info. Is the Pathmark still open?

Save-a-Lot counts too, but it appeals to a far more budget-conscious shopper than the regular chains. If the only supermarket serving a community is a Save-a-Lot or Aldi, a regular supermarket operator is probably missing an opportunity.

And if you need a car to get from East Falls to the nearest supermarket, then IMO East Falls lacks a supermarket.

BTW, I work in a city that doesn't even have a Save-a-Lot within its borders. A group of people there are launching a co-op grocery to fill the void.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"Jazz and blogging are both intimate, improvisational, and individual -- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both." --Andrew Sullivan, "Why I Blog," The Atlantic, November 2008

Glad to hear another spin on Fresh Grocer. It's nice to think of them as a chain willing to open in underserved neighborhoods. Perhaps the problems I had with the 40th St. one were specific to that store, not the whole chain.

I also lived in West Philly when the Fresh Grocer first opened, and we found it to be wildly expensive. They did have a pretty good ethnic foods section, but for everyday groceries I felt that the prices were geared towards Penn's affluent hangers-on, not for the rest of us.

I actually think it's possible to shop frugally at Whole Foods. There are some staples that I can get there cheaper than anywhere else, especially in the case of things that I am going to buy anyway and that happen to be considered "health foods". Nasoya tofu, for example, is $2.49 at Acme. Sometimes it goes on sale for $1.99 or even less. At Whole Foods, it's always under $2, and often goes on sale for $1.50 or so. Weaver's Way carries some brick-like local tofu that tastes way too strong for me. Therefore, once a month or so I go to Whole Foods and stock up on Nasoya tofu. I also appreciate their bulk section. I'm glad I don't have to shop there all the time, but it's a very nice alternative to Acme and Weaver's where I do most my shopping.

I sometimes wish the Whole Foods was closer, but I really don't want one close enough to take business from Weaver's Way, so I'm happy to time my trips down there around work meetings or doctor's appointments.

I'll check out that Gtown Fresh Grocer. I didn't even know it was there til I drove past it yesterday, and I'm glad to see this thread on here today.

If I head home from work via the 109 bus and the El, the 56th and Chestnut store is en route, and I sometimes get off the El to pick up a random item there. It's my impression too that they are a bit higher than other area chains on a lot of staple items, but they run very competitive specials, and their produce is generally better and better priced than your typical supermarket's.

I noticed last week when I needed to pick up some ice cream that WFM's regular, non-sale price on Breyers 1.75-quart containers was lower than the regular, non-sale prices at either Acme or Super Fresh. I don't know whether WFM runs better sales on this, though.

You have hit on a dirty little secret about "Whole Paycheck," though: In some areas, they are very competitive with supermarkets. It's in the showy, high-profile areas -- fresh produce, meats, seafood, the stuff you find on the perimeter of your supermarket -- that they're significantly more expensive. On the interior-aisle stuff, one of the main reasons they are pricier on average is because much of what they carry is organic, and organic products still cost more than conventional ones. Where Whole Foods and regular supermarkets carry the same items, the price difference is not all that great, and the advantage varies from item to item -- sometimes, as with these examples, WFM is cheaper.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"Jazz and blogging are both intimate, improvisational, and individual -- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both." --Andrew Sullivan, "Why I Blog," The Atlantic, November 2008

... the difference is this: those other supermarkets don't name themselves in such a way as to imply anything about the contents within. OK, not entirely true; I suppose that Thriftway implies "good deals" and Giant implies "large selection." But that doesn't say anything about the selection of items carried there. Think about it: Giant, Acme, ShopRite, Safeway, Publix, Winn-Dixie, Albertson's, Vons, King Kullen, Eagle, Kroeger's ... if you didn't know any better, you would have NO way of inferring that those were even grocery markets!

But: SuperFRESH. FRESH Grocer. WHOLE Foods. All of those names have a definite grocery connotation; one that was (completely reasonably, IMHO) picked up on by our original poster. There's nothing foolish at all about going into a store called Fresh Grocer and expecting to find an abundant produce aisle full of locally-grown, organic fruits and vegetables. To expect that, but walk into the G-Town FG and find meager (although passable in a pinch) organic and vegetarian and otherwise "healthy" offerings absolutely engulfed by Kool-Aid, discount meats, Chef Boyardee, DiGiorno frozen pizzas, Froot Loops, etc. etc. etc ... I mean, I assume that PhillyMan's post was intended as a joke, but I fail to see how the original post was so logically unsound as to warrant that kind of response.

It's interesting you should mention the names. All of the "old school" names: Acme, Thriftway, King Kullen, etc, those stores have all been around for generations. The new names, Superfresh, Whole Foods, Fresh Grocer, are all new names. And SuperFresh used to be A&P in this area, before they changed the name in the mid 80's. The new stores have to distinguish themselves by implying freshness and health. It's a racket.