Greenlife responds

Thank you for being a customer of Greenlife Grocery, and thank you for your comments. The first thing I want to assure you is that Greenlife's quality standards in prepared foods remain steadfast: All products in our stores are made without the use of preservatives, chemicals, hydrogenated fats or artificial flavorings, colors or sweeteners. With the resources of Whole Foods Market, we added another quality standard — all items are now made with only cage-free eggs.

It is true that local produce has been harder to find in our stores lately, but with spring now here, each week you'll begin to find more and more local items. We're all excited about that and plan to have more local products in stores this year than ever before, in produce and in all departments. We will continue our tradition of holding a farmers market outside our store (opening day for that is May 1).

We value local community feedback highly, and I am empowered to respond to local community needs quickly. Most of us at Greenlife are still the same people you've known all along. We are dedicated to giving the Asheville community the very best Greenlife store we can.

I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you in person about your observations. Please stop in and ask for me.

— Sam Wharton
Team leader, Greenlife
Asheville

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13 thoughts on “Greenlife responds

  1. ashevillain7

    Regardless of what ingredients the food contains now that it did not contain before, or vice-versa, the quality of the breakfast bar is not the same. I have to agree that everything tastes worse. Compounded with the higher price per pound this makes for an undesirable experience. I switched to Earth Fare after the Whole Foods takeover and I’m much more satisfied with their hot bar quality and price.

    If you want specifics… how about the square biscuits? They are absolutely ridiculous. Taste like cardboard, not big enough nor the same shape as a piece of sausage. They definitely don’t give me the impression that they are made from scratch!

    Despite my opinions, I’m sure the business is doing just fine as the parking lot always seems to be full. So just keep doing what you’re doing! Obviously some people don’t mind inferior product!

  2. weebleswobble

    What I want is some amount of honesty in advertising.

    If you’re a Whole Foods, then take down the GreenLife banner and label yourself as such. Don’t have articles like ‘GreenLife Responds,’ don’t park under the ‘local businesses’ tent at LEAF and street-fairs.

    Green Life isn’t part of the ‘little guys’ [in the scale of bourgie green grocery stores] anymore, y’all are an international chain and the “world’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods” [thats from wholefoodsmarket.com]

    so, if you’re not GreenLife anymore, why has the sign been left up for… what? nearly a year and a half after you bought it?

  3. Asheville Dweller

    Alot of so-called little guys in Asheville are not what they claim either.

  4. Ardee

    Greenlife, now Whole Foods in disguise, has lost my business forever. The prepared foods ARE worse than before. I used to go there to shop specifically for hot bar Indian food, which was out frequently, and kept fresh. No more, and all the foods and baked goods taste poorly made and seasoned. Many products have disappeared and local produce is down by more than half.
    I hated to shop at Whole foods in Atlanta – way overpriced specialty foods, and not particularly healthy or tasty. Instead i drove to three stores to get what i could get from Greenlife in one trip To find that they’ve bought out Greenlife and turned it corporate – Sad. No I will never shop there again.

  5. bill smith

    [i]local produce is down by more than half.[/i]

    To be fair, it is still early spring.

  6. maggie1

    You have to turn the prepared food containers upside down to read the ingredients. Why can’t they put them on the top like “Greenlife” used to?

  7. Ken Hanke

    Team leader? That sounds very Mart of Wal

    You can substitute just about any big corporation, I suspect. It smells very much of a corporate speak term.

  8. Betty Cloer Wallace

    “Team leader? That sounds very Mart of Wal.”

    “You can substitute just about any big corporation, I suspect. It smells very much of a corporate speak term.”

    It’s also very much a purported consensus-building governmental-department-speak term–rah! rah! rah!

    And it’s very much a marketing strategy term for owner-worker anarchist-speak–rah! rah! rah!

    Teaming’s been around for perhaps two decades now as an institutionalized way, albeit so cliched, (1) to show solidarity of purpose and allegiance within the group, whatever that purpose might be, and (2) to show that renegade employees subject to prosecution were operating outside the mission of the organization.

    We’re all-for-one-and-one-for-all-don’tcha-know serves dual purposes for advertising and for keeping the organization immune from employee-related legal difficulties.

  9. Cosmic Ballroom

    Teams get things accomplished. Until you’ve been a part of one it’s a difficult concept to grasp.

  10. Mick Ballantine

    Like many, I was a bit nervous when Greenlife was bought by Whole Foods. HOWEVER, it is with great joy I have found Greenlife even better than before. Several changes have been made that add to an improved environment. And the employees are friendlier, more customer focused. This I attribute to a wise and effective management structure from Whole Foods. I will always love the original Earthfare at Westgate, and still go. But I must say that the new Greenlife gets most of my business. Good job Sam!

  11. Big Al

    When I hear “Team Leader”, I think of
    “Assistant (to the) Regional Manager”,
    “WagonMaster General”
    and
    “Army of One”

  12. carig

    Glad Whole foods responded top you. They never responded to 3 requests/complaints I made just after they took over. Earthfare, the French Broad Coop, etc. on the other hand, are responsive, consistently. There is nothing wholesome about Whole Foods. I’d prefer to support really local…tailgate time!

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