By Nancy Kaffer

News that Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market Inc. may be considering a store in Detroit's Midtown provoked a range of responses from local retailers.

On the one hand, there's opportunity -- Whole Foods has a track record of working with locally owned vendors to place products in its stores.

But some small retailers are worried that the Midtown market isn't yet robust enough to support multiple organic grocers.

Midtown bakery Avalon International Breads, on West Willis and Cass, recently inked a deal that placed some breads and vegan products in Whole Foods' five Michigan stores. Chesterfield Township-based Achatz Handmade Pie Co.'s products are carried in the 40 stores that comprise Whole Foods' Midwest division.

Whole Foods works to bring local food vendors into its stores through its forager program, said Kate Klotz, Whole Foods' Midwest public relations manager, which includes education about the process.

"We're happy to sell their products if they meet our quality standards," Klotz said.
"What can you do, though?" said Paul Willis, one of the owners of Goodwell's Natural Foods Market at West Willis and Cass. The market, open for five years, has annual revenue of about $500,000.
Kim's Produce opened last January, and Smith said he's concerned that the store, which sells locally grown, organic produce and has about $120,000 in annual sales, hasn't had the time to develop a solid customer base.
The mix between local and national retailers is a compromise successful downtowns must negotiate, Mosey said.

"You need both, that's the bottom line," she said. "For continued confidence in the market by other investors, they want to see some of those flagship nationals, but we also want to make sure that we have a very local flavor kind of neighborhood. We want to see small independents as well as national chains."
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...of-whole-foods

Note: If you want to view the whole article and you don't have a subscription to Crain's, just Google the headline and click on the article from there.