Comments on: Vale Macro Wholefoods

By: Jared Schwinghammer

Jared Schwinghammer — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:24:17 +0000

Assessing the money flow is another important element within the company strategy format, so as to sustain a normal money flow to meet the essential capital requirements. Probability of monetary crisis and also the methods of crisis management must be pointed out in the structure. The business strategy must consist of the marketing plans and technique leading to the expansion in the organization.

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:29:44 +0000

Z, I think Pierce might be losing more sleep over the money he lost in Macro, as opposed to any guilt over potentially damaging the organics industry. Regardless of what The Dux wants to say, Pierce proved that a ‘large-format’ organics store is viable in Australia – a fact that ‘about life’, and more specifically, ‘Taste Organic’ in Falcon St. Crows Nest continue to prove. There is room for the intimate local shops like Granny Smith and also the large ‘destination’ shops like those mentioned. I am very impressed with ‘Taste’.

I don’t hate the people behind Macro – they dared to think big and garnered a lot of attention for the industry. There were, perhaps, better ways and better methods to go about growing the business than the vertically integrated, wholly owned model that Macro followed. Bypassing the markets with their own warehouses and distribution was in hindsight overreaching somewhat. MM speaks of the value of the ‘brand’, well perhaps a franchised deployment of stores where an owner/manager was better able to quickly respond to the local environment would have worked better? For example, no two IGA’s are exactly the same, and what worked for Macro in Bondi Junction or Crows Nest was not necessarily going to work just as well in Westfield Hornsby, or The Glen in Victoria…

Anyway, just my thoughts… but Macro still pains as an opportunity lost.

But on a side-note, how great are the Gala apples and the Williams pears in Granny Smith this past week! Yum! Let’s hope Princes Street gets the make-over it deserves!!

By: Z

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:15:05 +0000

I am incredibly saddened to hear the knews of this sale. I was also a Macro employee for close on two years. I came into the business not long after the original sale to Pierce and co when the atmosphere was still great. Staff were passionate and I learnt so much from the people I worked with. Slowly as time went on I watched the original staff members leave or be shown the door, watched this wonderful innovative store become a chain that expanded to Crow’s Nest and Melbourne with more to come. Many of the old customers stopped shopping there out of principle and the ones that continued often mentioned how disgruntled they were at souring prices and the disappearance of many of the old and loved products to be replaced with items like organic tampons and other products in an attempt to reproduce the booming commercialisation of Organics in America. We were always told by Pierce that this store was his legacy to his children and how he wanted them to be a part of it when they grew up. There were reservations regarding what he had done to other chains in the past – bought them out, changed them and resold them for a profit and he always assured us that this was different.

Hope you sleep well Pierce.. you destroyed one of the best stores in Sydney and in the process destroyed the livelihoods of so many other health food stores along the way. And for what? More $$$ for your pocket.

By: MM

MM — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:31:36 +0000

I have somehow dragged myself as an employee through the macro-Thomas Dux stage. We were always told at work that Macro was for sale, and when Woolies started using our logo (almost), it seemed the time was up. Sure enough, a month later, the news was in.
I totally agree with the initial post, that the reality of the Macro stores and business got completely away from Pierce before too long, and he never looked back and reassessed things. What he has done is create a marketable brand which has wide spread recognition among consumers and big business buyers. Well done, but obviously not the story sold to the hundreds of loyal customers who found somewhere peaceful and nurturing to shop.
What I know to be the truth of the Macro collapse is this: Pure, unchecked nepotism. Most ‘executive’ staff members were personal friends of Cody, and he paid them a stinkin’ fortune to hang around. The manager of my store, whom I know regularly slept whilst at work, was paid over a hundred thousand a year more than our store could profit – a total of nearly twohundred thousand for just one staff member. So after personally ‘bailing out’ Macro with his own chequebook a couple of times, Cody cut his losses and handed over to Woolies.
Our ‘induction’ to TD and woolies was disgraceful- The goon in charge of the whole chain had the gall to tell an entire room full of ex-Macro staff that there was no market for organics – or else ‘he wouldn’t be here’- Ha! And now six months on, serious problems lurk for ‘The Dux’. Mass staff walkouts, ridiculous budget plans, The truth is, they aren’t trying to take out the organic/gourmet market – they haven’t a clue. They are really out to take the business we give to the local small supermarket. The only thing they don’t sell is cigarettes.
I still support my local organic shop – Go to Cheltenham Organic Supply on reserve road if you live in Bayside Melbourne – and religiously send people there.
Hopefully all our health food shops will become little macro’s for us. We can rebuild.

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:48:04 +0000

I want so very, very much to like About Life – and I will most definitely be supporting them (along with Granny Smith of course) but if I were to compare Macro Wholefoods at its best, to About Life today, I think the comparison is not so favourable. The atmosphere of the About Life stores (original one at Rozelle and especially the old Macro store at Bondi Junction) somehow is not quite right. The atmosphere is awkwardly somewhere between ‘preaching green’ and ‘trendy commercial’, if that makes any sense… I have no problem with passion for the environment, but I do find the increasing amount of ‘non-organic’ produce and ‘non-organic’ items stocked at About Life, many of which are pre-prepared and wrapped in copious amounts of packaging, somewhat confusing and at odds with what they say they stand for. The name and logo, ironically, are both equally ambiguous in regards to what the store is. Macro Wholefoods in Bondi Junction always had the store stocking 100% organic produce. I do not enjoy going out of my way to shop at About Life to find fruit or vegies in the produce section labelled as ‘conventional’.

I loved Annabels in Crows Nest. Without a doubt one of the best. I am not sure though that the shop would still be there, even if Macro hadn’t come along, due to the late owner’s bad health… Of course there is still Heller’s Health Foods down Willoughby Rd a few blocks – but then they also seem to suffer the ‘cliche’ limp produce syndrome…

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:51:11 +0000

There are a few of us quality organic retailers out there. You just have to look! And I’ve always said, you get what you deserve, so if there aren’t many of us, it must mean there aren’t enough people who care that much.

By: Colin Rossie

Colin Rossie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:25:50 +0000

I first shopped at Macro when it was in Pyrmont back in the early 80’s, and followed it through it’s 2 Bondi incarnations. I thought Mike and Grant did a wonderful job, a true service to supplying consumers. Both deserve our profound appreciation. Back in those days the emphasis wasn’t on organics so much as making then hard-to get macrobiotic foods available. When I had Harvest Restaurant (1991), I pointed their noses in the direction of Eco Farms and NiuGini Coffee.

Prior to that point they had stocked some organic produce, but the supply was erratic and not their main emphasis. I’m pleased that they were entirely organic a few years later- it was an idea whose time had come. When the two of them came back from a field trip to the US they were, I suspect, heavily influenced by the American store “WholeFoods”. Name, packaging, label changes and new attitude confirmed this. Even though the changes were sometimes greeted with scepticism by their older consumer base, they always managed to carry them off. On the whole, each change was a genuine improvement

I was a little dismayed when they sold the business, but continued shopping there for a while. But each time the experience was a little more soul less. Each new change took the place further from its roots and natural constituency. Hype replaced authenticity, passion, service and commitment. Eventually I stopped shopping there. Like every other egocentric, economic rationalist entrepreneur before him, Cody blew the legacy he brought. His temperament probably wasn’t appropriate to such a business.

Unfortunately, the true damage was done to his competitors. There had always been a vibrant, sustainable health foods industry in Sydney. The competition had been a good thing. The aggressive expansion of Macro under Cody changed this. Helmut’s in Balmain after a long history had vanished some time before, the victim of changing demographics in Balmain/ Rozelle and poor presentation (the cliché 2 week old, wilting organic vegies syndrome.) But then icons like Russel’s and Annabel’s followed. In one case, Annabel’s at Chatswood, it was direct and deliberate competition that forced their closure. This is the true legacy of Pierce Cody’s Macro: the demise of what had previously been a very healthy, vibrant market. The true losers of that are we as consumers.

So the options now are places like Granny Smith’s and About Life or the Woolworth’s/ Coles duopoly that wants to cash in on the health food consumer demographic. About Life may be expensive, but they have my support because they appear passionate and committed to the needs, concerns and style of their consumer base. To my mind, About Life has an integrity which the Woolworth’s/Coles duopoly chains don’t appear to have.

Woolworth’s/ Coles are driven by the Holy Dollar and as such I think should be carefully monitored. For them, the profit motive outweighs considerations of quality and loyalty and commitment to the health food consumer.

Witness their attempts to manipulate or cajole suppliers to cut their prices. This doesn’t flow on to the shelf price. Also witness the way they manipulate the market for self profit: for example, they discontinued stocking a good, sugar free wholefood product like Uncle Toby’s Organic Vita Brits and replaced it on the shelf with sugar-laden, generic house brand Organic Wheat Biscuits. There is even a disinformation campaign to accompany that.

What is really needed now is a resurrection of that former vibrant, competitive healthfood / wholefood scene of the 80’s & 90’s: several new shops or chains whose owners have passion and commitment to the consumer base. This would an antidote to the practices of the duopoly and provide some competition to them. Any entrepreneurial types out with the passion and desire to see that happen?

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:08:38 +0000

Just thought I’d give a heads-up on this. As I mentioned when originally posting in this thread, Woolworths intention was to use the Macro Wholefoods name that they purchased along with the Macro stores, as a ‘house brand’ in their Supermarkets – Well, they have now started stocking ‘Macro Wholefoods Market’ branded products in their health foods isle. The packaging and logo are identical to the products available at Pierce Cody’s version of Macro. Nothing appears to have been re-designed, except the labels now read “Packed for Woolworths” not “Packed for Macro Life”. It is extremely, extremely weird to say the least, seeing these products on a Woolworths shelf. I wonder how the original founders of Macro would feel about where their creation has now ended up??

By: Amber

Amber — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:58:06 +0000

Thanks for the explanation … I was a loyal Macro Richmond shopper; but had not been in since the birth of my second child; relying instead on our unreliable local healthfood store for a number of essentials.
I am really surprised at how ‘under the radar’ this closure happened in Melbourne. I was a ‘Macro Member’ and did not even receive an email to advise that they would be closing … wonder if Woolies will honour the key-ring and discounts. he, he.
Imagine my bewilderment yesterday when I tried to pull into the car park and there were building works signs everywhere, I thought they must be moving down the street or something .. I did not consider that they had closed. I dragged my two littlies up and down Bridge Road to no avail.
Sadly, I will have to research again where to find much of the food and cleaning products that had improved my son’s eczema ..
PS Woolies has dubious credentials in this market for me … I remember purchasing an ‘organic rasberry jam’ with their label – but it did not list any accreditation/ supplier details .. lets hope the Macro Fig Jam is one of the 100 items for consideration.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:19:39 +0000

Great comments. MAcro was brought out by Woolies for 2 reasons. First to get the Melbourne site for Thomas DUx and secondly to get the Macro brand for it supermarket chain. Woolworths are trying to get credibilty as a true organic and health brand by rolling out the macro brand. Unfortunately the organic industry will not roll over like the multi-national suppliers of Nescafe, Coke etc. I know some organic companies have advised Woolworth’s they are not interested in supplying them, especially as Woolies also demanded that the price be cut as well.
As a former supplier of Macro, the buyout by Woolies was the only way I was ever going to get all the money owed to me. Your local Health and Organic store should be supported in the abscence of the Macro stores.