Whole Paycheck

• whole paycheck

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Suggesting that shopping there can be very expensive. First use appears c. 2001. See cite below.

Whole Paycheck

1. (US, slang, derogatory, humorous) Whole Foods, an American supermarket chain.
   • 2001, Consumer Publications, Limited (publisher), Madison Magazine‎^[1], volume 43, page 14:

     We (all right, Nancy) want to buy as much organic dairy products, fruit and produce, meat and fish as we can. So we start at Whole Foods where they have both. At absolutely ridiculous prices. The store is not known as Whole Paycheck for nothing.

   • 2005, David Vogel, The Market for Virtue, The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility:

     But while the firm has made healthier foods more accessible - though certainly not more affordable as witnessed by its nickname "Whole Paycheck" - it has also driven many independent natural foods retailers out of business and promoted the cultural consolidation of organic agriculture.

   • 2017, Michael Ruhlman, Grocery, The Buying and Selling of Food in America:

     Key players in this fragmentation were the niche grocery stores that had begun rapidly expanding in the 1990s, such as Whole Foods Market (opened in 1980, now doing $15 billion in annual sales) and Trader Joe's (1967, about $9 billion today), followed by newcomers such as Sprouts Farmers Market and Fresh Thyme Farmers Market, hoping to cut in on sales at Whole Foods (dubbed “Whole Paycheck” by some for their comparatively high prices).

   • 2015, Robin O'Sullivan, American Organic, A Cultural History of Farming, Gardening, Shopping, and Eating, page 240:

     Some critics indicted Whole Foods of misleading consumers about the products that they were paying through the roof for. Charges of elitism were common, as was the derisive nickname "Whole Paycheck."