I can’t be the only person on the planet who never says “WalMart.” That place is WallyWorld to me.
In smaller communities such as Beckdawrek’s, when WalMart comes in, other stores evaporate. It truly IS WallyWorld.
~VOW
I, for one, am glad that they are not getting free advertising, and instead are getting roasted with every mention
Yeah man, sick burn.
we have another small chain with lots of organic stuff and high prices , Fresh Market. I wonder how long they will survive. They have 159 stores in SE and mid Atlantic.
I’ve seen it called MallWart.
No, Kroger was only a minority owner, and they wanted out. Kroger’s decision to divest seems to have triggered the bankruptcy filing.
In Springfield, Missouri, Dillons (Kroger subsidiary) pulled out some years ago, and local chains Smitty’s and Consumers Markets are likewise gone. WallyWorld it is.
Huh. I didn’t even know there was an Earth Fare in the Triangle. No worries, though–Publix has gained a foothold, and Wegman’s is coming in! AFAIC, these organic, bougie, overpriced stores can all go belly-up. Their customers–sorry, guests are for the most part, insufferable and entitled. I can’t go in those places without coming out steaming.
I don’t believe they ever were (or claimed to be) 100% organic.
We have lots of different grocery chains in suburban Philly. Wegman’s (my usual), Acme, Giant, Aldi, Weiss, Gigante, Redner’s, Shoprite, etc.
In my experience, the grocery sections in department stores (such as Walmart and Target) don’t have near the selection of real grocery stores.
Ah, yes, we have something called “Fresh Thyme” which is shadow-owned by Meijer, but I can’t shop there, because aside from produce and meat, everything is some store brand hippie commune stuff, and all the the produce is overpriced because it has the meaningless “organic” appellation. I suppose I could shop there, but it would take me an hour instead of 10 minutes, which I examine every damned thing on the shelf.
I don’t normally call people on things, but if you’re going to claim that organic is worse for the environment, you’re going to have to provide some pretty good proof.
For many things, organic takes more acres to produce the same amount of food, thus destroying more trees and natural habitats.
I doubt that many virgin old-growth forests are being leveled to create organic farms. Instead, most organic farming is taking place on acreage already being used for farming. Sometimes this is land currently being used to grow low-value crops like corn or soybeans.
Cite your source please.
Organic farming yields are significantly lower for most (not all) crops. Here’s some direct USDA stats/charts.
Here’s charts from an organization ‘Genetic Literacy Project’ that’s controversial on funding and associations (relationship to GMO seed producing company Monsanto) but here it’s a presentation of USDA stats.
The part about requires more forest to be converted to farm land isn’t as simple a claim to make or refute obviously. But think of that on a global basis and in terms of a wholesale switch to organic methods. Then I think that’s a pretty reasonable claim of a potential* backwash against the overall environment, since tropical deforestation for example is driven in many cases by growing overall agricultural demand. If you’re just talking about a marginal increase in the relatively small proportion of agriculture currently organic, and say just in the US** then it’s not as true.
But in the big picture feeding a still growing world population with lower yielding agriculture would be an issue that can’t necessarily be hand waved away. OTOH that’s unlikely to happen. Organic or even non-GMO is a market niche and is likely to remain so on a global basis.
*though it wouldn’t 100% necessarily be true depending how damaging a given set of farming methods are for the environment beyond the particular land being farmed, fertilizer run off for example.
**forests aren’t as clearly better for the macro environment in the temperate zones as in the tropics. And there is plenty of land in the US that was once farmed, the East particularly, that went back to forest after the Midwest, and West to some degree, developed as agricultural areas using better farmland (though also forest cover went back up in part from people not burning as much wood for heat). But it tends to be more marginal land, that’s why it went back to forest, so a cost impact at least to ramp up production with lower yielding methods.
Kroger left this area last year. Sounds like they may be having financial issues.
Thanks Corry El. An organic farming couple I know bought their neighbor’s farm a few years ago and has had a rough time getting good organic yield on it. She says it’s because the good microbes need to build back up in the soil. She’s been running her farm organically for about 30 years and it looks positively lush compared to her new land. The difference is interesting, even after three growing seasons.
Yeah Marsh closed for good about 3 years ago. Now there are a variety of empty stores which may be bought out and turned into other stores, not sure.
The one in midtown Bloomington that became a Luckys closed long before the chain closed down. The north side Marsh in Bloomington is now a Kroger. West side one is Fresh Thyme. No idea about the east side one.
I don’t think Meijers drove them out. Marsh had prices far higher than any other competitor so a lot of people stopped shopping there.
As someone who lived in one of those smaller communities I actually appreciated it when Walmart arrived. Local businesses were pretty crummy and I had to drive to Little Rock to do a lot of my shopping.
Except your writeup says nothing at all about saving time, only that some stores are cheaper. And can you give an example of “service” that pricier stores offer? Whether I go into Fresh Thyme or Meijer, the service is just the same.