Bracing For Whole Foods' U.S. Expansion Plans

Some answers came from the trade publication Natural Foods Merchandiser , which is part of the same parent company as SN . NFM recently polled a few experts on how natural food stores can react to Whole Foods' expansion. These responses should be of interest to supermarkets as well, given their ongoing competition with Whole Foods. One natural food retailer said the key is to play up points of differentiation with Whole Foods. This retailer even changed its name and logo to emphasize its vegetarian focus and local roots, and took advantage of the media publicity surrounding Whole Foods' arrival to play up its own distinction.