Co-CEO Walter Robb: Detroit’s Whole Foods is Such a Success that Upscale Grocer Now Wants to Open a Second Store in Detroit

By A Texas Reader

Of course, Whole Foods's sole Detroit location is a resounding success.

It's the only major supermarket located in Detroit proper.

Not supermarket chain.

Supermarket.

As in single store.

As in monopoly.

And Whole Foods's "investment" in Detroit was risk-free.

Another recipient of the city’s munificence is Whole Foods Market, a wildly profitable firm paying out $500 million last year in stock dividends, which is receiving $4.2 million, but hopes to get more from so-called brownfield (“blighted” areas requiring “revitalization”) incentives. [“States, cities hand out billions in tax abatements,” by Nancy Hanover, World Socialist Web Site, 27 January 2014.]

I assure you that no city in North Texas has had to give a tax abatement to Whole Foods.

North Texas is awash in supermarket chains.

Even the city of Dallas is well served by Kroger, Albertsons, Central Market (part of the H.E.B. chain out of San Antonio), Tom Thumb (part of Safeway Stores), Walmart, Costco, Target, Natural Foods Grocers, Trader Joes, Aldi and Sprouts.

So, what is the problem with Detroit?

At the Detroit News.