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amethyst73We live within easy walking distance of a Whole Foods grocery, and (until recently, for reasons completely unconnected to this post) have done most of our grocery shopping there. For fresh goods, both the price and quality regularly beat the local big-box grocery contender Safeway. The same is even true for some prepackaged things: Traditional Medicinals tea is a fair chunk less per box at Whole Foods than in Safeways organics section for no reason that I can imagine. Boxed cereal and canned goods, on the other hand, tend to be cheaper at Safeway. None of which has much to do with the discussion at hand, but is here anyway.
There are also some things that Whole Foods just does better than Safeway: their fresh-baked stuff, for example. In-house breads and (in particular) cakes at Whole Foods range from very good to fantastic. Perhaps with this information in mind, we've tried a few of their house brand of prepackaged baked goods - alas, with much more mixed results.
365 brand sandwich bread: Quite acceptable as sandwich bread goes. They appear to favor a uniform, fine-crumb dough, with no seeds or crushed-but-not-ground wheat in it, which makes the texture a little unexciting. Further, in their honey whole wheat, there's a detectable "high fiber" texture when chewing. It's not unpleasant per se (not like a high fiber tortilla brand we tried once that really did resemble cardboard!), but it is something to note. Slight tendency to dryness. Refrigerate if it's warm - no preservatives here, and it will get moldy in a few days if not kept cold.
Whole Foods brand English muffins: Passable. The flavor was pleasant, but the dough texture was too close to that of a roll or of the aforementioned sandwich bread - far too fine a crumb, which means that when you split a muffin with a fork, you get a fairly uniform flat surface within, rather than the "nooks and crannies" on which Thomas' English Muffins so rightly pride themselves. (Guess what brand of English muffin I grew up with?)
Whole Foods brand naan: Naan? Yup. I wouldn't have thought of it either. I'm not much of a naan connoisseur, so I'm less able to specifically critique this particular attempt. I can say a few things, though. Cold/room temperature, this bread has roughly the feel of a pita - it's even hollow. If, however, you heat it for a few minutes (even without the recommended brushing of water or oil), it much more closely resembles the original in texture/softness and, I think, flavor. Good as the real thing? Heavens, no. But quite decent; I'd be willing to buy it again.
365 brand whole wheat pizza crust: I was suspicious as soon as we took it out of the package. It was perfectly round, as if it had been cut out with a cookie cutter. The edge (the crust part when you're done putting stuff on it) was of uniform width and thickness, perfectly squared off on the inside and outside edge, as if the dough had been pressed into a mold of some sort. The main surface was flat with regular perforation marks somewhat reminiscent of a cracker. And the overall appearance of the thing's surface just looked wrong: shiny and flat, with no bubbles indicative of a well-risen dough. The cracker impression, sadly, carried through the consumption: eating it was like eating a fairly solid and exceptionally dull cracker with pizza toppings on it. The second crust sat in the package in the fridge for about four days making faces at us until we admitted to each other that neither of us was keen on the idea of having to consume it. It was discarded with no fanfare whatsoever. Heartily disrecommended.
So... overall, Safeway is better for prepackaged baked goods too. Oh well!
There are also some things that Whole Foods just does better than Safeway: their fresh-baked stuff, for example. In-house breads and (in particular) cakes at Whole Foods range from very good to fantastic. Perhaps with this information in mind, we've tried a few of their house brand of prepackaged baked goods - alas, with much more mixed results.
365 brand sandwich bread: Quite acceptable as sandwich bread goes. They appear to favor a uniform, fine-crumb dough, with no seeds or crushed-but-not-ground wheat in it, which makes the texture a little unexciting. Further, in their honey whole wheat, there's a detectable "high fiber" texture when chewing. It's not unpleasant per se (not like a high fiber tortilla brand we tried once that really did resemble cardboard!), but it is something to note. Slight tendency to dryness. Refrigerate if it's warm - no preservatives here, and it will get moldy in a few days if not kept cold.
Whole Foods brand English muffins: Passable. The flavor was pleasant, but the dough texture was too close to that of a roll or of the aforementioned sandwich bread - far too fine a crumb, which means that when you split a muffin with a fork, you get a fairly uniform flat surface within, rather than the "nooks and crannies" on which Thomas' English Muffins so rightly pride themselves. (Guess what brand of English muffin I grew up with?)
Whole Foods brand naan: Naan? Yup. I wouldn't have thought of it either. I'm not much of a naan connoisseur, so I'm less able to specifically critique this particular attempt. I can say a few things, though. Cold/room temperature, this bread has roughly the feel of a pita - it's even hollow. If, however, you heat it for a few minutes (even without the recommended brushing of water or oil), it much more closely resembles the original in texture/softness and, I think, flavor. Good as the real thing? Heavens, no. But quite decent; I'd be willing to buy it again.
365 brand whole wheat pizza crust: I was suspicious as soon as we took it out of the package. It was perfectly round, as if it had been cut out with a cookie cutter. The edge (the crust part when you're done putting stuff on it) was of uniform width and thickness, perfectly squared off on the inside and outside edge, as if the dough had been pressed into a mold of some sort. The main surface was flat with regular perforation marks somewhat reminiscent of a cracker. And the overall appearance of the thing's surface just looked wrong: shiny and flat, with no bubbles indicative of a well-risen dough. The cracker impression, sadly, carried through the consumption: eating it was like eating a fairly solid and exceptionally dull cracker with pizza toppings on it. The second crust sat in the package in the fridge for about four days making faces at us until we admitted to each other that neither of us was keen on the idea of having to consume it. It was discarded with no fanfare whatsoever. Heartily disrecommended.
So... overall, Safeway is better for prepackaged baked goods too. Oh well!
