Have you checked out the new Whole Foods on Houston Street yet? Oh that’s right, you can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods. (Face it, you can barely afford to pay your rent.) But wait, there’s good news! The popular natural and organic foods retailer is expected to acquire its biggest direct competitor, Wild Oats Markets, by May 22 in a merger which, according to a major marketing and retail information provider, has the potential to create a Wal-Mart-esque “natural foods powerhouse … lowering prices enough to make natural and organic foods even more accessible to the general public.” The $671 million transaction was supposed to be finalized on April 25, but was extended because the Federal Trade Commission didn’t have all the information necessary to give it the green light. New York is in Whole Foods’ top five in terms of market share, although the city will gain only one store as a result of the acquisition. Now if only they’d open a New York Trader Joe’s where purchasing organic foods doesn’t require standing in a checkout line for 57 minutes.
