36 Pro-Tips For Shopping At Whole Foods

Employees typically restock shelves either overnight, starting around 10 p.m., or as early as 4 a.m., according to blog Grocery Store Guy. Either way, you’ll find the most popular items right after the store opens its doors, especially on weekdays.

Whole Foods refreshes most of its sales on Wednesdays, so if you want to maximize your budget, that’s the day to do it.

Most Whole Foods locations restock shelves 3-4 times per week to keep up with demand. Tuesdays and Fridays are the most common days, since it allows employees to replace items sold out over the weekend, as well as prepare for the upcoming one.

When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, he made changes that integrated the two companies. The biggest? You can return anything from Amazon at your local Whole Foods, if it’s a participating drop-off location.

Look out for those Prime Member Deals! In addition to members-only sales, you’ll be treated to an extra 10 percent off sales storewide, excluding alcohol. In certain zip codes, you’ll even get delivery or free pickup from your store.

No need to spring for a whole watermelon or an entire wheel of brie. You can save some serious cash by asking a team member to cut you a portion of a particular item in certain departments.

Yellow tags are meant to mark an item that’s highly discounted. These are the products the store wants to sell the quickest—either because of rebranding, the line being discontinued, or the item being close to its expiration date.

No wallet, no problem. You can keep an eye on weekly sales, create your shopping list, and even pay in select stores with the Whole Foods app.

Don’t want another app on your phone? The weekly circular is the way to go. Physical copies are usually available at the front of the store or at customer service.

If you’re not obsessed with the store’s exclusive 365 by Whole Foods Market line already, get ready for a pantry game-changer. With over 3,500 products you can’t find anywhere else (including thousands of organic options!), it’s the best way to buy healthier staples.

Certain produce is more vulnerable to chemicals than others, so opting for some types of “regular” fruit can be perfectly safe and cost way less. For example, while you may want to consider organic strawberries, thicker-skinned produce like avocados block out pesticides more.

If you see a great deal on a whole chicken, but have no clue what “spatchcock” even means, the butcher can handle that, free of charge. Same goes for cutting steaks and tying up roasts.

Butchers can also answer all your beef-related questions, like which cut is best for a certain dish, and the tastiest ways to prepare it. They’ll even marinate your meat for you.

Whole Foods buys the entire animal, so butchers usually have a lot of meat to sell. A store rep told Eat This, Not That that lesser-known cuts, like boneless sirloin, flat iron steak, or skirt steak are often priced lower so that they don’t go to waste.

Try seeking the fishmongers’ help with jazzing up that filet. “We’re not just talking salt and pepper,” the store told Eat This, Not That. “There’s a huge selection of spice blends inspired by Thai, Latin, and other global flavors.”

Been eyeing something in the beauty aisle, but can’t quite justify the price? Once a year, the store sells their cosmetics, skincare, hair care, nail polish, perfume, and beauty accessories at 25 percent off, with an additional 10 percent off for Prime Members. Check out the massively marked-down Beauty Bag bundles they offered during Beauty Week 2022!

The hot bar is popular with people who work in surrounding businesses—which can result in longer checkout times come lunch. If you’re looking to get some quick grocery shopping done during the week, it’s better to go outside of that 12-2 p.m. window.

The opposite is true for the suburbian locations, where stores tend to fill up around 5 p.m. with people buying dinner ingredients after work.

This tip is important if you want to get in and out with a bottle quickly. The wine section is divided by new- and old-world wines. After that, they’re grouped by similar colors and styles. Here’s a hint: Old-world wines are named by region (and are mostly European), while new-world wines are labeled with the type of grape used to make them.

The store revealed to Eat This, Not That that it offers a “whole case” discount of 10 percent. But the case has to be one type of wine (no mixing and matching), so find your favorite and stock up!