Our floral departments are all dressed up for the holidays! Along with providing your traditional favorites in fresh, vibrant colors, we think this is the perfect time of year to reflect on how our Whole Trade® Guarantee provides beautiful blooms that can change someone’s world. From Costa Rican lilies to Ecuadorean roses, our Whole Trade flowers are grown to meet our commitment to ethical trade, the environment and the highest quality — all while bringing the warmth of the holidays to you and yours.

In Costa Rica, we buy our Whole Trade lilies from Plantas y Flores, and their deep red Asiatic Knockout lilies are perfect for the holidays. Plantas y Flores is located high in the mountains — about 6,600 feet above sea level — above San Jose near the Irazu volcano, which you can see on a clear day. They are keen on detail and, in addition to quality checks on foliage, they actually measure to ensure the head size of every lily hits our minimum specification. Once the lily stalk is cut for packing, the plant’s bulbs are taken out of the ground and used in the farm’s compost. It takes an average of 13-18 weeks to grow a lily plant from bulb to a stalk that is ready to be harvested for retail sale.

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Whether you’re stuffing a stocking, sending a gift across the country, handing a hostess some holiday cheer or simply putting something special in the hands of someone special, you’re sure to find a gift for everyone on your list at Whole Foods Market. Over the next three days, we’re sharing helpful ideas in our gift giving guide. Today we’ll explore over 10 gifts for under $10 that are sure to make even a Grinch smile.  Tomorrow we’ll share stocking stuffers from around our stores and gifts you make yourself. And Sunday brings tips for easy shopping from the comfort of your living room — in your PJs with a mug of hot cocoa in hand.

OVER 10 GIFTS UNDER $10

For the Wine and Cheese Lover

Isigny Ste. Mére Bonhomme Brie: A rich, creamy, crowd-pleasing cheese, exclusively ours and only available this time of year. It’s the best of Normandy, traditionally crafted by a farmer co-op. Lush grasses make for rich milk, superb flavor and a luscious mouthfeel.

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The holidays are coming, and with them, the many opportunities to share your time with family and friends. One of the things I like to do this is get together and make holiday flower arrangements for our homes. It’s not about perfection, rather it’s a chance to take a moment and slow down and simply savor the beauty of the season. So, whether you’re pulling together a whimsical bouquet for the kitchen island or wowing with traditional elegance at the dining room table, here are a few quick and no-stress tabletop décor tips to try this season.

Want to keep things food-centered and fun? A group of simple vases of different sizes, filled with alternating rows of fresh cranberries and limes are not only easy, but the kids can help too! Place them along a buffet, and add a few candles to help pull it all together. Or, take that pumpkin you didn’t get around to carving at Halloween, cut off the top and place your floral centerpiece inside. Make sure your flowers are in a water-tight vessel — otherwise you might end up with an unexpected mess!

Break away from the traditional holiday hues and get colorful! Casual chic is easily obtained with some vibrantly hued Whole Trade® roses, stems cut short and placed in a ceramic baking dish or glass Mason jar.A low profile centerpiece like this helps keep your table merry without taking up valuable real estate needed for that bowl of sweet potatoes!

Ornamental branches, such as pumpkin trees, are great as added bits of texture and charm with pre-made arrangements and centerpieces. Or, place bunches of red ilex berries in a large vase for a simple yet dramatic display. Try some Whole Trade orange asiatic lilies paired with sprigs of rosemary to add a wonderfully subtle hint of fragrance that won’t clash with the other holiday aromas wafting through the kitchen.

A vase can be a jar, a centerpiece can be a group of varietal squash and leaves, and a rose can still be, well, a rose! Whatever you prefer, there are lots of ways to make your table look great without much fuss and leave you with plenty of time to swap stories over that last slice of pumpkin pie.

Today’s the day for tulips! While supplies last, pick up 3 10-stem bunches for just $12. With a deal like this you can bring Spring to someone special and brighten your day, too. Better act fast, today only — Friday, March 25th. Enjoy!

Happy Spring!

Nothing shouts, “Spring is here!” quite like colorful tulips. We’re delighting in the arrival of the season with a Tulip One-Day Sale this Friday. That’s right, on Friday, March 25^th only, you can purchase 3 10-stem bunches for just $12. With a deal like that you can bring Spring to someone special and brighten your day, too.

Read about two of our tulip growers in, Tulips…The Campaigners for Spring, and start thinking about what blooms will look best gracing your vases. I’m partial to bright pink…or vivid orange…or sunny yellow…or…well, luckily I don’t have to choose just one. I can pick all three!

xx = Amount of savings varies by store

Happy Spring!

Fresh produce and flowers: these two have a lot of differences but there are some interesting parallels from the business side of things. Some items are regular and reliable — even with crazy weather conditions – appearing like clockwork at just about the same time every year and progressing though the harvest season in a consistent, even predictable way. Others are impossible to predict, particularly in the early spring when the weather is at its worst. Case in point: artichokes. Regardless of our history and experience with the crop, it seems every year artichokes have a way of turning the most seasoned buyer into a doe-eyed novice. The same is true of field cut daffodils and prognosticating the true start of the springtime flower season.

Like many springtime bulb crops, cut daffodils have a greenhouse season and a field season. And while the greenhouse product tends to be easier to predict, field daffodils are larger, hardier and, generally, more desirable. Rain (and the associated cloud cover), temperature (air and ground), plant stage and harvest conditions will all conspire to influence scheduled harvest days. And because the season is so short and the window of optimal harvest conditions so narrow, the available supply can go from feast to famine and back again in a matter of days.

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Valentine’s Day and roses go hand in hand. And around here we’ve been thinking about not just how beautiful they are, but about what our Whole Trade Guarantee™ roses give back to the communities where they are grown.

Grown in the Ecuadorian Andes by a group of Fair Trade certified farms, these “blooms with benefits” help to cultivate better working conditions and equitable wages for the farms’ workers. For each case of Whole Trade roses purchased by Whole Foods Market, an additional percentage is paid directly to worker groups from each farm who collectively decide how to use the money. Some development projects have included education, training, scholarships, health care and housing.

Growing conditions for roses can be finicky at best, and Ecuador has come to be one of the more popular growing environments due to its 10,000 feet elevation, proximity to the sun and its cool nights. The flower industry started there around 20 years ago and currently gives direct employment to more than 70,000 people, with indirect employment going to another 210,000 people. While on average the entire country holds an unemployment rate of 8%, there is very little unemployment in the regions where the flowers business has developed.

Through our journey with Whole Trade roses, we are learning more every day about the farms, their workers and the flowers they produce. The opportunity to share the splendor and beauty that flowers convey while simultaneously helping others…I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day!

This is a reminder that we are spreading a little love around by giving away five gift baskets full of socially responsible goodies. Why? Because it feels good to give gifts that give back! And one of the lucky winners will also receive a $150 Whole Foods Market gift card to use to purchase a few bouquets of our beautiful Whole Trade roses, Fair Trade wines or ingredients for a home-cooked dinner for two.

Just enter a comment on our contest blog post (not on this post) by February 10th telling us what makes your Valentine special and you may win one of five baskets filled with Whole Trade and Fair Trade treats – from milk chocolate hearts and chocolate dipped bananas to cinnamon sugar drizzled popcorn and dark chocolate granola. Whether it’s your sweetie or your grandma, we want to hear it all! We’ll choose five comments at random to receive a Valentine gift basket.

Even if you don’t win one of the baskets, you can still celebrate Valentine’s Day by giving gifts that give back, helping spread that V-Day love around the world. Through fair prices, direct trade, community development and environmental stewardship, gifts of Whole Trade and Fair Trade treats add a new meaning to the old saying: “it’s the thought that counts.” Yes, it’s the thought…the thought that every purchase supports the workers and communities that produce the item you’re buying. From flowers and chocolates to wines and unique snacks, you can find a bundle of treats for your valentine.

Remember, tell us about your Valentine by February 10th! Go to this link to comment.



When you visit our stores this holiday season, chances are you are going to notice some of the beautiful flowers available to dress up your home for the holidays. I’ve been partial to the Asiatic Knockout lilies, which are deep red in color with an open bloom — perfect for the holidays! These and other Whole Trade™ lilies are grown at Plantas y Flores, a floral farm in Costa Rica that I was honored to visit along with other Whole Foods Market team members in early December.

Plantas y Flores is located high in the mountains above San Jose near the Irazu volcano. The terrain is lush and steep, and the roads wind around the sides of the mountains. The elevation on the farm is around 2,100 meters, which is 6,600 feet above sea level, and on a clear day you can see the Irazu volcano. The weather was cold and rainy and we were all wearing jackets to keep warm in Costa Rica!

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With the holidays right around the corner, excitement is in the air around flowers. Our floral buyers are busy ensuring the right varieties and colors of the freshest flowers make their way to our stores, but we recently had the opportunity to meet someone who reminded us that flowers can mean so much more.

Gladys, a worker from a Fair Trade certified farm that supplies our Whole Trade Guarantee roses, came to our headquarters in Austin, Texas last month. Our produce team from across the country had gathered for a meeting, and Gladys shared her story with us.

Gladys has worked at Agrocoex, one of our Whole Trade partner farms in Ecuador, for 17 years. She explained that at Agrocoex she is able to participate in decision making and feels comfortable to express herself and her opinions. Women make up about 60% of the workforce at the farm and are valued for their work. Gladys and her coworkers have all have received training in labor rights, project development, negotiation skills and management.

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