How a Major Grocery Store Chain Can Dramatically Lower the Cost of Food

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

**Joe Weisenthal** (0:18)
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

**Tracy Alloway** (0:22)
And I'm Tracy Alloway.

**Joe Weisenthal** (0:23)
Tracy, can I say something? I don't know if I've brought it up on the podcast before, but I love grocery stores. I love visiting different kinds of grocery stores. I love produce aisles. I like seeing new ones. If I'm in a rush or whatever, it's not so pleasant, but I really like grocery stores.

**Tracy Alloway** (0:37)
How often do you do the weekly grocery shopping, Joe?

**Joe Weisenthal** (0:40)
Well, so we usually buy online, but I go to Key Foods, which is in my neighborhood probably once or twice a week I think, and actually even those quick runs I actually enjoy. Obviously, unboxing is not fun, and there are aspects of it that are fun, but it's an interesting experience, and I like food.

**Tracy Alloway** (0:58)
I will say, I'm starting to become cynical about the American grocery experience, which is terrible because I didn't go to American grocery stores for a really long time. So-

**Joe Weisenthal** (1:08)
What years are you talking about? When you were in Japan?

**Tracy Alloway** (1:10)
So I grew up in Japan. I remember going to grocery stores when I came back to Chicago in middle school and just being absolutely wowed by the variation that was there. And you know, like literally a kid in a candy store running down the cereal aisle going, Oh my God, I've never seen any of these things before. Doing the whole, what's the famous-

**Joe Weisenthal** (1:30)
The ultimate. So you can get how at least they spark joy.

**Tracy Alloway** (1:33)
Of course.
Of course. But now I think I take them as an accepted.

**Joe Weisenthal** (1:38)
Yeah.

**Tracy Alloway** (1:38)
Because now I'm sort of-

**Joe Weisenthal** (1:39)
Now you get yourself, for sure.

**Tracy Alloway** (1:41)
I shop a lot at Walmart in Connecticut, which is sometimes a soul-sucking experience. I shop a lot at the grocery store that we're about to discuss. I shop a lot at the nearest grocery store in Manhattan.

**Joe Weisenthal** (1:55)
Which one's that?

**Tracy Alloway** (1:56)
That one's a Morton Williams.

**Joe Weisenthal** (1:58)
Okay. Yeah, yeah.

**Tracy Alloway** (1:59)
And that one, I'm trying to be diplomatic.
It's just depressing. The price. I ran in there once and I grabbed like a cup of soup, like freshly made soup, because I was having dinner, a girl dinner basically, 12 freaking dollars.

**Joe Weisenthal** (2:16)
The Manhattan specific grocery experience, I would say uneven to put it best.
There are some decent ones, but there's a lot of places that are like high-end and expensive and low-end and expensive. You know what I'm saying? Like you go to these places and they're like sort of shabby and they're dirty and stuff like that. Well, at least I'm getting a deal. Then it's like, actually no, it's just a worse experience and also it's expensive.

**Tracy Alloway** (2:41)
This reminds me also when my husband first came over from the States to join me here in New York, the first place I took him to was the Whole Foods on Columbus Circle. Because I just wanted to show him, look at this grocery store. It's crazy.

**Joe Weisenthal** (2:54)
There's a new Wegmans at Astor Place, which is where I get off, and I really expected that to become part of my routine, because that's where I get on the subway.
I like it. It's cool and they have a lot of stuff, but it hasn't become part of my routine. There's opportunities still, I would say, for the better Manhattan and just the better grocery store experience still.

**Tracy Alloway** (3:13)
It is very true that Manhattan has a shortage of, let's say, lower priced grocery stores. We've got the Whole Foods. Well, we have Trader Joe's, maybe that's the closest, but we have a lot of Whole Foods, a lot of Wegmans. I'm not even going to mention, what's the one with the G?

**Joe Weisenthal** (3:30)
Oh, yeah, Christides.

**Tracy Alloway** (3:31)
There we go, Christides, Morton Williams, places like that. But we don't really have, we definitely don't have a Walmart.

**Joe Weisenthal** (3:37)
Well, in Texas, we have H-E-B, which everybody loves. It's one of the most beloved brands, I think, in the region. They're super, and they're huge, and they're clean, and they have good prices, and incredible variety, and a sushi bar, and a barbecue pit in the store. Anyway, there's a new grocery store opening up. We're recording this June 18th. Tomorrow, as of the time we're recording this, but tomorrow, right in Times Square, right adjacent to Times Square, there's a brand new Aldi, which is, I guess, where you shop sometimes when you're in Connecticut.