As we head into the full swing of the holidays, many of our stores* will be selling Fraser Fir trees. These tree comes from family operated Bottomley Evergreens & Farms. Here are some of the reasons why we bring these trees to you, and you can check out the video to learn more about the Bottomley’s and their farm.
Our trees are fresh from the Blue Ridge Mountain, grown by family-owned and operated Bottomley Evergreens & Farms.
With a dark green color, aromatic smell, needle retention, shape and fullness, Fraser Firs hold decorations beautifully.
A well-cared-for tree should remain fresh at least three to four weeks!
For every tree cut down, Bottomley plants two more trees the following year.
* Bottomley trees are available in stores in our Mid-Atlantic, Rocky Mountain, Southwest, South, Northeast and North Atlantic regions. Our Midwest and Florida region stores will have small “table top” trees.
I have a confession: Of all the citrus fruits, my absolute favorite is grapefruit. Sinfully refreshing, every grapefruit season I indulge almost daily with drizzled raw honey and lightly roasted walnuts! I love it as well for an afternoon snack or an after dinner dessert, as is, or with a square or two of dark chocolate.
Grapefruit gets its name because of the way it grows: in clusters, just like grapes. The major types of grapefruit are white, pink/red, and star ruby/rio red varieties. All grapefruit have a similar tangy-sweet flavor and are very juicy. The grapefruits that contain a lot of seeds are used to make juice. Grapefruit season varies slightly, depending on where the fruit is grown. In Arizona and California, January to June is peak, but in Texas and Florida, peak season runs October to June.
We introduced our Better Bag last holiday season to rounds of applause and sighs of relief. In case you missed it the first time around, here it is-perfect yet again. Join the fun!
Did you know that during the holidays extra waste amounts to 25 million tons of garbage? Yikes! Instead of adding to the trash heap with wrapping paper, use A Better Bag. Remember our exclusive A Better Bag designed by Sheryl Crow that benefits the Natural Resource Defense Council? These affordable bags have been flying off the shelves – you may even have one (or more!) already in use as a grocery tote.
For the holiday season, we are featuring two sizes of these re-useable bags and we think the smaller one is perfect for gifts (and at 79 cents it’s way more affordable than many gift bags on the market!) For larger and bulkier items, the larger size is a life saver, especially for those of us who are particularly challenged when it comes to boxes and wrapping paper and bows. Plus when you give a gift in these stylish bags, your gift recipient gets two gifts in one!
And since it’s the season for Top Ten Lists, here’s our:
Top 10 Reasons to Bag the Wrap and Use “A Better Bag” Instead
Americans throw away 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
A Better Bag is made of 80% post-consumer recycled PET bottles, saving them from going into the trash.
In the U.S. alone, about 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away each year (and only 0.6 % of them are recycled).
Extra waste during the holidays amounts to 25 million tons of garbage.
Using A Better Bag can save millions of single-use bags (and wrapping paper!) from going to landfills.
It’s a great-looking, cool, eco-friendly way to wrap gifts.
A Better Bag can be used and re-used thousands of times.
Whole Foods Market and Sheryl Crow teamed up to create a custom design for “A Better Bag” to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council.
If every family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.
Double the gifting: It’s actually a gift that holds another gift which gives and gives again, and says you care even more!
We’re on a roll now with our “Zero Waste Holidays” blog posts. (Read about greening holiday cards and holiday lights.) North Americans produce 25% more waste during the winter holidays – that’s 25 million extra tons of garbage going to the landfill. The Whole Foods Market Green Mission Team has gathered our favorite tips to feature on this blog throughout the holidays to help us all reduce our load. Our customers are some of the greenest folks around, so please share your tips with us too. Hopefully we’ll help each other discover new and creative ways to live lighter on the planet this holiday season. Read the rest of this entry »
My father’s all time favorite meal was soup. He loved it at lunch and dinner. He had no real favorite – the one he was eating was the one he loved best. Preparing soups makes me think of him and the wonderful memories of the smells of soup permeating the house. Soup can be a simple or complex meal to produce but once it is made, I have a special way of making the recipe your very own: cheese!
There are so many great soups out there – and a lot of excellent soup recipes on our site. Here are a few classic winter soups along with suggestions for my favorite value added ingredient, cheese.
I really like the classically fall flavor of butternut squash. Sweet and nutty soups are winners for fighting the chill in the air. I really like creamy and salty flavors with sweet. I dress this soup up with Feta crumbled on top prior to serving. These flavors blend together really well and the texture of the soup and the feta is a perfect combination. Let me know what you think! Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve done any holiday meal planning lately, you know that there’s no way you are going to feed 100 kids for $10 in the U.S., but the World Food Program can.
For just $10 you can join Whole Foods Market in providing 100 meals to kids via the World Food Program’s Rwanda School Feeding operation. We pre-paid that $10 per bag to feed the kids and have also donated the costs to produce these high-quality, 100% organic cotton and natural burlap bags. Made as eco-friendly and fairly as possible in audited and certified facilities, they are only available at Whole Foods Market.
A gift of one FEED 100 Bag is like giving to 101 people. Join us this year in helping others as you shop.
Thanks for joining me for our second “Zero Waste Holidays” blog post. (Check out our inaugural post on holiday cards.) North Americans produce 25% more waste during the winter holidays, which equates to 25 million extra tons of garbage going to the landfill. The Whole Foods Market Green Mission Team has gathered our favorite tips to feature on this blog throughout the holidays to help us all reduce our load. Our customers are some of the greenest folks around, so please share your tips with us too. Hopefully we’ll help each other discover new and creative ways to live lighter on the planet this holiday season. Read the rest of this entry »
Thank goodness for leftovers! One of the joys of being the holiday host is having delicious leftovers available for subsequent meals. Here are some of our favorite tips for making new, exciting dishes from your leftovers.
Mashed Potatoes
Mix with some cooked chopped cabbage, kale or other hearty winter green for a quick version of colcannon, an Irish staple.
Sauté sliced leeks in butter until soft, then puree with chicken stock and mashed potatoes for a delicious winter soup. Read the rest of this entry »
The day before Thanksgiving is our busiest day here at Whole Foods Market, and one of my favorite days of the whole year. It is the day my team and I have been working toward for months, with the excitement building more each day. It is non-stop action for us in the stores: readying holiday orders, stocking the shelves and making sure each customer gets exactly what they need to make their holiday perfect. It is also a day that we remember how important our customers are to us.
We are always thankful for you, our customers – your feedback, your support, and your help in making Whole Foods Market such an amazing place to shop. This year in particular we want to thank each customer for telling us what they like – and don’t like – enabling us to learn, grow and make each store and product exactly what you want it to be. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to Whole Story, the official blog of Whole Foods Market.
Don’t know us? In a nutshell, we are the world's leading natural and organic grocer and we’re passionate about healthy food and a healthy planet. Learn more about us.
We’re lucky to have a whole bunch of smart, passionate people doing incredible things in areas like organics, supporting local growers, green practices, fair trade, micro-lending and all kinds of food related stuff. We’ll use this blog to share some of the cool things going on around here.
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If you’ve done any holiday meal planning lately, you know that there’s no way you are going to feed 100 kids for $10 in the U.S., but the World Food Program can.
Thank goodness for leftovers! One of the joys of being the holiday host is having delicious leftovers available for subsequent meals. Here are some of our favorite tips for making new, exciting dishes from your leftovers.
The day before Thanksgiving is our busiest day here at Whole Foods Market, and one of my favorite days of the whole year. It is the day my team and I have been working toward for months, with the excitement building more each day. It is non-stop action for us in the stores: readying holiday orders, stocking the shelves and making sure each customer gets exactly what they need to make their holiday perfect. It is also a day that we remember how important our customers are to us.
