Stuff you can't make up

Shopping as Showtime? Whole Foods supermarkets attempt at shaking-up the boring world of grocery shopping results in, "a better-for-you food bazaar on organic steroids."

Hhhhmmmm...Whole Foods, the all-natural grocery chain beloved by soccer moms, Hollywood starlets and the organically inclined, is about to stake its future on a very different premise: shopping as showtime.

The article then goes on to describe the innovations and ideas behind what Whole Foods is trying. Ultimately, it appears to come down to a premise as simple as: "make grocery shopping fun."

Whole Foods defends it's brand, as well it's attempt at innovation:

This stereotype of Whole Foods as “Whole Paycheck” — or a Volvo parking lot — infuriates Mackey.

“Let's go down right now and count the Volvos in the parking lot,” he says, his face turning almost scarlet. “Many of our customers are so environmentally conscious they don't even own cars.”

But most are well-educated. “The common link is education, not income,” Mackey says. “That correlates with income, but not perfectly.”

Supermarket News recently named Mackey — who never finished college — the seventh-most influential person in the food industry. That's two notches ahead of Costco CEO Jim Sinegal and only a handful of notches below top-ranked H. Lee Scott Jr., CEO of Wal-Mart Stores. Not that Mackey has any desire to challenge Wal-Mart, which has an estimated 20% share of the industry while Whole Foods is still well under 1%.

Best of all: “We're not a religion. We're not a cult,” Mackey says. “We don't think you'll go to hell if you don't shop at Whole Foods.”

[Phew!] Well, that's always good to know...