Above is Danny Wegman. Millionaire, Philantropist, Snappy dresser and grocerier. Danny made his fortune the old fashioned way, he inherited it. I was in his wine store today and in he walks. You would think Paris Hilton just entered the place. Everyone was like "Hey Danny hows it going", "Look its Danny". He was hard to miss, because he was wearing a knee length technicolor coat trimmed with fur. Now if your going to take most of the hard earned money from you employees and buy a 5 million dollar house on a lake why do you have to flaunt it in front of them. Dress like a regular Joe for Christ sake instead of a Pimp (But when you pay your people dirt and take all the profits maybe... I Digress). But Hey, then they wont notice you when you walk in the front door...I think I get the point. Something has gone horribly wrong in our society when the richest guy in town sells you your groceries.
So then I go over to the Grocery store. The place is jammed packed and the isles are barely wide enough to get two grocery carts side by side. They are clearly going for more product space in lieu of any room for people to walk around. I see there are these big wigs walking the floor like peacocks. I knew they were big wigs because they are dressed in business suits embroidered with Santa Clauses and Wegmans logos and Santa and his Sleigh and such. They looked rediculous. Then I caught wind of their conversation. It went something like this "Wegmans is uniquely positioned blah blah blah, to have the highest quality and best shopping experience, blah blah, of any grocery store in the state. And I swear I did not make this up, literally 2 seconds after I heard "the best shopping experience", this lady goes by me saying "I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place". I guess the wigs were too busy blahing to catch it.
Another very annoying thing about Wegmans is they rebrand everything. Eggs, Milk, Crackers, everything has the Wegmans brand on it. Its less expensive but.. the quality is sub par. Take any Wegmans item and compare to the national brand and the Wegmans item is crap. hey cut corners to get the price down. Probably paying the workers in the factories who make this stuff $8 and hour. I buy national brands, although they are getting harder to find at Wegmans. They even have Wegmans potatoes. The potatoes for god sake have Danny name on them. Why not put the name of the farmer who grew them on the label, he did a hell of a lot more to bring me those potatoes than the person who put them in a bag and resold them to me. The only reason I shop there is because of what Americans fear most, The loss of Convenience.
During the summer I bought my vegetables from the Farmer who grew them, I try to buy my produce and meat from local producers, who have their name on the label, some times they even hand me the item and tell me about how it was produced. We have got to get back to small produced mom and pop culture. I am not really into making some fur trimmed coat wearing dude richer.