Sprouts vs. Walmart

I needed to go grocery shopping yesterday, but instead of heading straight to my usual Walmart I decided to check out Sprouts first. Sprouts is closer to us than Whole Foods, and I had hoped that it would be a little better since it's a smaller company. Whole Foods seems to be getting pretty big. That's not always a bad thing, but in the case of healthy and local food, national chains don't always come through. Sprouts is currently limited to CA, AZ, TX, and CO, whereas Whole Foods is all over the country (and Canada and the UK).

So I had high hopes. Maybe this was where I'd be able to find great local food. Maybe I'd finally be able to stop going to Walmart. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. I'll go into more detail, but I was pretty disappointed. Perhaps my expectations were too high.

I walked into Sprouts at about 3:15 on a Wednesday, and it was pretty crowded. The store itself was on the small side. Much smaller than Walmart and I think it was smaller than Whole Foods as well. I was surprised at how many people were there. The store seemed pretty busy. However, the small size and limited number of checkout registers might have made it look busier than it really was.

I had brought my last two receipts from Walmart so I could compare prices on some products. I knew the healthier food was going to be more expensive, and I assumed that the same product would be slightly more expensive at Sprouts too. I found several of my usual pickings, but was shocked to see how much more expensive some of them they were. My favorite Kashi blueberry cereal was $4.99 compared to $3.18 at Walmart. Breyers Ice Cream was on sale at 2 for $7 (which is a good deal), but the listed regular price was $6.99. Walmart's regular price is $3.88. There were some other products with smaller differences, but they all add up. Over the course of a year the difference would be significant.

So what would I buy at Sprouts? Well, they have a lot of different products that aren't available at Walmart. I bought some natural sliced turkey meat which cost $7.99 per pound. I usually get Oscar Mayer sliced turkey meat at $5.83 per pound when I'm at Walmart. That's a significant cost difference, but it's probably worth it for a better quality product. I know better food should cost more money, but sometimes it's still hard to accept. I did not buy my Kashi cereal at Sprouts, but they did have several natural cereal brands that I've never seen before. They seemed to be priced a dollar or two more than the regular Kellogg's or General Mills cereal I get at Walmart. I bought a couple of these new cereals, along with some cookies, chips, and canned fruit to try out. Then I went to Walmart to take advantage of the cheaper prices on some of our usual items. The pain of feeding the Walmart corporation hasn't won out over my desire to save some money. Ideally I'd like to cut Walmart out of my shopping, but I'm not there yet.

A lot of the products at Sprouts were labeled as organic and/or natural, but there wasn't a lot of information as to what that meant. It's hard to tell whether it's marketing greenwash or legitimate labeling. I'd like to know the story on my food, but that's not always practical at a grocery store. Sprouts does have some info on where their products come from on their website, but I would have liked to see that information displayed more prominently inside the store. Buying local when possible is something I'd like to do, but I need to know what is and isn't local when I'm picking something out.

Sprouts was ok, but not as good as I was hoping. I may or may not return. I think I'm going to check out Whole Foods next. They're a bigger company with a lot more stores, but maybe I'll be surprised with what they have. Otherwise it's back to the Internet to research more alternative sources of food.