A Competitive Region

The word that keeps popping up in regard to the arrival of Whole Foods Market in Fayetteville is one we’ve all heard many times: competition.

The belief is that prices at Ozark Natural Foods, the Fayetteville-based co-op, will drop as it competes with the Texas chain for business. The market, composed in large part by countless consumers who always wind up finding the best deal, will help determine the price of a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk and a rack of ribs. If the prices are right, the market will respond with the almighty dollar. If not, those dollars will go elsewhere.

In the new reality of competition and choice, Ozark Natural Foods, for decades the only specialty foods retailer in the region, will have to adjust its margin. To what extent remains to be seen, but if prices don’t appreciably drop, then the co-op could be in real trouble a few years down the road.

But Whole Foods is about much more than the looming price war with Ozark Natural Foods. Whole Foods is about Northwest Arkansas and its scenic vistas and dynamic culture of business and entrepreneurism. 

The region’s first flyover is now under construction at the Fulbright Expressway. The U.S. Census Bureau says Northwest Arkansas now has a population of 500,000. Is it time for Tulsa to look east over its shoulder and worry about what’s going on over here? Not just yet, but as the region’s reputation grows other companies — regional, national and international — will likely follow Whole Foods and settle in somewhere between Bella Vista and the Bobby Hopper Tunnel.

As prices for fresh-cut flowers, heirloom tomatoes, grass-fed beef and Canadian bacon hopefully fall, Whole Foods will help Northwest Arkansas do what we all know it must: compete.