FTC tries to block Whole Foods' bid for Wild Oats' data

[NashVegas]

Source: Tennessean / AP

Government lawyers are trying to block Whole Foods Market Inc. from gaining more access to financial information about other retailers in an antitrust lawsuit against the natural and organic food chain.

..FTC lawyers said that in building their case against Whole Foods, they talked to other companies to learn about the grocery industry.

Whole Foods has asked a federal judge in Washington to change a previous order limiting access to other companies' documents, to let its general counsel see them.

The FTC said in a court filing made public Thursday that if companies knew their business secrets could be turned over to a competitor such as Whole Foods, they wouldn't cooperate with government investigators.

Other companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., The Kroger Co. and Trader Joe's Co. have asked to enter the case to oppose Whole Foods' request for more access to their information.

Read more: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070622/BUSINESS01/706220388/1436/BUSINESS

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What's this Wal-Marts is afraid of losing market share to Whole Foods?

[Ian David]

1. But they won't block the telephone companies, newspapers, tv and radio station mergers? n/t

[rec_report]

8. Right, this regime never met a merger it didn't like... until now.

Polar Bear

[KoKo]

2. Sounds like a complicated issue....Hard to know who the good guys from the bad guys in this one...

[youngdem]

13. Not at all.

Whole Foods is run by Democrats, and Bushco is taking punative action against them, to prevent a well run, responsible company from growing and (gasp) possibly supporting Dems and better government.

This crew of crooks hasn't lifted a fucking finger in 7 years to stop a merger of any consequence, even as the Bells are reforming and media continues to consolidate.

But we can't have a merger of two specialty grocery chain, because THAT is a threat to the American way FAR more than having only five major media companies (ALL with Republican CEO's).

No, not complicated at all. Pathetically simple, and sad. We have partisan crooks for leaders.

[MsRedacted]

3. Safeway owns a huge number of chains -- did they stop them? No.

Von's, Randall's, Geunardi's, Dominick's just to name a few.

I travel around the country and I always know I can find things in the grocery store -- because it's just like out local Safeway.

I think Wholefoods is a threat to major conventional chains like Safeway -- people (at least in CA) look for organic and natural foods. And premium costomers are slowly moving to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

Here is the response to this action by Whole Foods, but methinx the FCC is protecting big business -- not the consumer.

http://www.wholefoods.com/blogs/jm/archives/2007/06/whole_foods_mar.html#3

[NashVegas]

4. Thanks for the Link

Mackey needs to be more discerning about what he puts in emails to the board.

"OATS remains a relevant competitor. By buying them we will greatly enhance our comps over the next few years and will avoid nasty price wars in Portland (both Oregon and Maine), Boulder, Nashville, and several other cities which will harm our gross margins and profitability. OATS may not be able to defeat us but they can still hurt us. Furthermore we eliminate forever the possibility of Kroger, SuperValu, or Safeway using their brand equity to launch a competing national natural/organic food chain to rival us."

He'll never be the first or last CEO to say something like that, but it's too easy for an administration that's hostile to anything that hurts agribusiness & traditional corps & hedge funds to use against them.

Meanwhile, there's all kinds of speculation that even with this going on, the FTC will STILL approve the merger of XM and Sirius.

http://retail.seekingalpha.com/article/37614

[dmosh42]

5. You really hit the problem on the head, Crisco...

This is about the big agribusiness and chemical cos like Monsanto, who have invested heavily in genetically engineered crops for our food industry. Whole Foods, from my own experience, seems to be taking the path of true organic food sales. They do cost a little more, but quality is pretty evident.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. The difference is that Wild Oats is the only real competition in this market segment.

If Safeway or Albertsons had a whole foods concept chain then there would be little reason to oppose Whole Foods' bid to buy Wild Oats. Without question the large Whole Foods becomes, the more premium customers are siphoned off from traditional chains like Safeway. It's not just about organic or whole foods preferences, it's about service and the shopping experience and the customers who will pay a premium for that. My local Safeway is down the street from Whole Foods and was redesigned to look more like a natural foods store, but the design instead reveals how little they understand the concept. There's lots of fake wooden finishes and dimmer lighting rather than stark flourescents and the produce counter has more crate-like bins for some products. The overall effect however is more warehouse than natural foods. It's too dark, the wood grain finishes look like cheap vinyl wallpaper, and the produce is still tossed in the displays rather than artfully arranged. On top of that, all of their organic produce costs the same or more than down the street at Whole Foods. The meat counter is still all prepackaged products where Whole Foods is set up like a butcher, and the ready to eat deli counter is sad where at Whole Foods it's a beautiful large display of hot and cold prepared food.

I'm not happy about Whole Foods becoming the only survivor in the national natural foods store concept because they won't have even token competition in this niche in most markets. Trader Joe's is the closest chain as a competitor and it doesn't offer full supermarket selections.

[NashVegas]

10. If the Premium Consumer Is What It's All About, I'm Not Even Certain It Matters

Whether or not WF and WO merge.

But if a deep-pocketed superstore chain were to buyout WO, they'd have unlimited capability to pound WF, just as Wal-Mart & Wal-Greens has killed so many competitors.

I see a WF/WO merger as the lesser of two evils; while I don't trust either of those two companies to always keep organic foods standards from being repeatedly weakened, I do think they will listen to their consumer base if we yell loudly enough. I have no such hope for Wal-Mart to do the same.

I'd rather keep the "premium" consumers in the conventional supermarkets, but for different reasons.

Premium does not necessarily = educated or active in the movement. Before Wild Oats bought out Nashville's sole organic grocer, the food prices were *very* reasonable, often less than conventional grocers. It was in a very mixed neighborhood, and the parking lot was filled with used, old Hondas, Toyotas, Saabs, Volvos. Wild Oats bought that store, and shut it down after relocating to extremely high per capita areas. The parking lot is now all huge SUVs - and Hummers!

Whole Foods announced they were moving into the market last year - one block away from Wild Oats.

Wheeeeeeee ....

[Gormy Cuss]

11. Money ("premium consumers") is what it's about.

The other grocery stores wouldn't be paying attention otherwises.

Whole Foods ate a lot of small natural foods grocers on its way to a national presence and always reduced the organics level IMHO. The benefit that Whole Foods and Wild Oats brought was mainstreaming the natural foods niche. The disadvantage was the same, in that neither store has held to the standards of the old style natural foods grocers. I'm not fond of that change and recognize that with WF there's a chance that they will listen to consumer concerns but that's driven by the desire to hold onto those premium consumers willing to buy the Kobe beef and expensive wine along with their organic produce.

[rec_report]

6. K&R. The Bush regime wants Wal-Mart to control the organic food...

...supply, so that they can (eventually) curtail it.
The maggots running the US government want us to eat garbage, as an increase in cancer and diabetes, etc., means more profit$ for the pharma-terrorists.
Polar Bear

[Robbien]

7. Thanks. That is what immediately came to mind when seeing this story.

I thought well lookie there, Walmart is siccing the FTC on its competition.

[BlueIris]

12. Anything to keep Whole Paycheck away from my beloved Wild Oats. nt