Whole Foods, which reported mixed first-quarter financial results on Feb. 10, is facing increased competition from other grocery chains in natural and organic foods. Robb said Whole Foods is trying to cut expenses by $300 million by the end of 2017.
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5% off invoice instead of credits would be a dream, but that's not the case. In the North East region, we get somewhere around 0.3% back from UNFI.
Labor is the variable cost but so are utilities..i told my astl that we could save some money by going communist bloc grocery and turning off the a.c in the store or cutting the fashionable track lighting at night
At my store they ain't replacing anybody. I think they anticipate losing business to a competitor that's moving in soon down the street. I've never heard of them, but apparently they call themselves Whole Foods Market. It seems that whenever this Whole Foods Market opens a store near us, our business drops. Maybe we should try to copy their style; obviously they're doing something right.
Any idiot can make budget by cutting labor, are you still that willing to kill the best thing we had going for us , Guest Service? Too many stores are getting in the organic game, our guest service had always set us apart. Now we are so short handed we can barely get the shelves stocked while taking the guest to the product. Many days we have to choose. It is so embarrassing to say to our guests " I am so sorry we are out of that item (can't get it on the shelf OR Unfi is out of stock as usual, or Regional has discontinued another guest staple to make room for a "fad" item). Then we decide to remodel stores and whoever makes the plan-o-gram decisions should be fired!! And then, why not screw it up even more by moving products from one department to another. I don't think I know of one department that was happy with the changes nor a guest. I get trimming some of the fat but it went way too far to the detriment of our guests. We need to get back to basics, bring back some of the TM labor, cut some Regional waste of labor such as Field Reps,Coordinators, Foragers etc. Those people we rarely see and when we do, they do nothing for us. Bring back the staples people expect to find at WFM instead of the "fad garbage". Put the stuff back in the old departments and get rid of UNFI, oh and whoever signed on for that 5% off invoice instead of getting credits should also be fired!!!
Labor is the ultimate VARIABLE COST here. Let's wait and see how thin they will skin the cow!