a whole foods opened up down the block from me recently--they seem to be popping up everywhere...i hope that w/i a few years, these types of markets are the only ones we know.

I have heard both good and bad about this buyout. The big 'M' word (monopoly) comes to mind first off.
Competition between the 2 bigs chains was actually good.

I think they are competing with Wal-Mart now. Read the rest of the article and see what you think

From what I already know and have gleaned from that article, Wal-Mart's forte is not to be 'Organic or nothing' Wild Oats and Whole Foods on the other hand were both very much promoters of 'Organic everything' and promoted that fact heavily. Wal-Mart is strictly quantity vs quality, IMO.