Whole Foods Lives Up to Whole Paycheck Nickname This Thanksgiving

  • Price of annual feast’s ingredients climb at organic grocer
  • Competitors showing lower costs amid food-deflation streak
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
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The Thanksgiving holiday is providing a window onto a thorny problem for Whole Foods Market Inc.: its reputation for being overpriced.

The price of a basket of 20 ingredients commonly used to prepare Thanksgiving dinner -- things like turkey, potatoes, canned corn, stuffing and green beans -- rose 7.6 percent to $94.63 at the organic grocer this year, even as food deflation pulled down grocery prices across the industry, according to a price study conducted this week by Bloomberg Intelligence at stores in northern New Jersey.