WHOLE FOODS!

It's a big day for Relay! You've probably noticed that we've been adding wonderful new vendors, specifically farms, just about every week for a while now... but we've been keeping mum about our biggest Relay Family addition. Now that the store front is up and running, we're proud to announce that Relay carries products from Whole Foods!

The 19 folks who started the original Whole Foods in Austin, Texas in 1980 were certainly a forward-thinking bunch. Just think about how much our food-system consciousness has changed in the past 30 years! They were at the forefront of the movement, they believed (and continue to believe) in the value of quality food, real food, WHOLE food from transparent sources.

There's so much media hype about Whole Foods these days it can be hard to sort out what's what. We looked into their core values: "...selling the highest quality natural and organic products available, satisfying and delighting our customers, supporting team member happiness and excellence, creating wealth through profits & growth, caring about our communities & our environment, creating ongoing win-win partnerships with our suppliers, and promoting the health of our stakeholders through healthy eating education."

At Relay, we've got our own set of core values. Our goal is to provide a way to for folks to support local farm and community businesses while offering the kind of selection that comes with larger vendors, like Whole Foods. For our smaller vendors, it is a balancing act -- competition and opportunity. They have told us they accept the challenge of competing with the bigger boys in order to receive the opportunity to be in the same arena -- offering their uniquely grown and produced items to the wider audience they need to achieve growth and sustainability. In this way, Relay becomes the market that levels the playing field. They get to compete for your favor (and patronage!). You get to follow your pocketbook, your conscience, and best of all your taste buds.

Right now, we've begun with Whole Foods' 365 items, which offer incredible value and taste. Soon we will branch out to into other categories. Meantime, happy browsing!