We live in northwest Arkansas. 10 minutes away from 4 different Walmart stores, 15 minutes away from a Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, a giant mall... and 2 hours away from a Whole Foods. :-( FML
I've been making due by shopping at this tiny (and I mean tiny) natural food store about 10 minutes away. It looks bigger than it is because it shares it's space with a medical supply business. Weird.
This place has about 5 aisles of food. Everything is so expensive because they have no competition. It sucks. Today I drove a little further- to Fayetteville. I figure a college town must have some vegetarians/vegans, right? Well, sorta. I shopped at the one natural food store there and it was okay.
Prices a little better, selection a little better but still not great.So the point to all of this is that I'm seriously considering making a monthly trip to Tulsa solely to shop at Whole Foods.
How insane is that?? Yeah, pretty insane. We stopped at Whole Foods a few weeks ago when we were wrapping up our Tulsa trip. I was in heaven! Not only do they have tons of vegan cheese, vegan yogurts, mock meats, etc They have vegan baked goods!!! omfg, the vegan chocolate cake was divine. So I'm thinking I could make the drive in once a month, bring a big cooler and buy enough of those staples to last us the month. I can still go to the farmer's market every Saturday for produce and to WM for the other stuff. Or Whole Foods could just open up a store here. C'mon Whole Foods, do it!!
5 comments:
That sucks....we are lucky to have a lot of places around here. We used to do a monthly trip to Trader Joe's and Costco, they were about 40 minutes away.
Luckily we have new ones closer now but I'd do it! Save you money and lots of good products!
I'm still so proud of you! I don't know how you do the dairy...impressive!
What made you go Vegan? I'm really curious. I don't do red meat and I could give up chicken/pork/etc. very easily. I'm sort of intrigued.
I long for a Whole Foods...we are also 2 hours away from one, so I more than feel your pain!
I'm so sorry! I don't shop at Whole Foods due to their outrageous prices and the fact that they've been trying to take over smaller health food stores (looks like they're taking a cue from WalMart?)... BUT that photo of their store makes me laugh. That was my view outside my living room window when I lived in T-town. My apartment was right across the street. Except back then it was Wild Oats. Waaaaay better. ;)
Hi Angela,
My name is Jeremy and I'm the information systems manager at Ozark Natural Foods. I'm also our resident vegan, and I was really sorry to hear that you found the selection at the Co-op inadequate. I’ve been out of the country for the past few weeks, but when I saw that you’d had a less-than-positive experience at the Co-op, I wanted to send you a quick comment.
I've visited the Whole Foods in Tulsa and in Little Rock, and while I've found a few vegan products that we don't carry, there haven't been many. We carry FYH Vegan Gourmet vegan cheeses (4 varieties), Yves/Lightlife/Tofurky/Field Roast/Morningstar Farms vegan meat substitutes, as well as several types of soy yogurt (Wildwood is my personal favorite, although the So Delicious Coconut Milk yogurt is good too)! Our deli bakes vegan muffins daily as well as several types of vegan baked goods (e.g. cookies and cakes). We also have an entire freezer case of pretty tasty vegan ice creams, including a brand (Temptation) that is not generally found, even at Whole Foods. I think that our selection of vegan products is at least on par (and quite honestly, I think it's better) than the Whole Foods nearby, although I can't speak to the quality of their chocolate cake - I imagine it's pretty good.
We also can usually special order items that we don't regularly carry (I don't know that vegans are a large group here in NWA), and I'd be happy to answer any specific product questions or to even show you around the store if you would like to come by some time.
Feel free to give me a call at 479-521-7558 or email me at jeremy@ozarknaturalfoods.com.
thanks so much for your comment Jeremy! I'm emailing you right now. :-)
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