Whole Foods Market - Northeast

HEADING TO THE NORTHEAST

Well - it has been some time since I last posted. Sorry. We were in New York for two weeks shooting for Whole Foods Market Northeast Region. What a trip it was. We shot in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Long Island. The Northeast is one of the strongest regions in Whole Foods and we had a great time meeting many of the amazing people that make it such a good one.

The first part of our trip was spent shooting in all of the stores. The schedule was a little insane - we averaged four locations a day and the first day we did five stores in Manhattan. We filmed team members as well as customers asking them a series of questions related to Whole Foods. For example, we would ask team members, how do they give “excellent customer service”, and we would ask the customers, “how does the customer service at WFM make you feel?” As you can imagine, over the course of 17 locations, we gathered a pretty good amount of footage and faced the daunting task of editing it down in two and half days before showing it live at their “Vision Day”. Lets just say we were really familiar with the inside of our Hampton Inn.

Here is a picture of Larhn and Kevin after filming at Union Square in Manhattan.

While it was a ton of work, it was also a really great opportunity to really get a sense of the Northeast and the areas surrounding NYC. Every morning we would pile into the Subaru and head out for the day. From the Bronx to Greenwich to Harlem, we logged a lot of miles and met some amazing people. We even went to the first and probably only Whole Foods Market diner in West Orange New Jersey. I have to tell you folks - if you ever find yourself in West Orange, you have to stop here - it is amazing. Real food served diner style, it just doesn’t get much better. I had a house-made veggie burger, hand cut fries and an Earth Univeristy banana milkshake. Now if we could just convince WFM to put these diners in the airport and urban centers, we would have it made. Watch out Johnny Rockets.

The West Orange Whole Foods Diner.

Kevin and I both celebrated our birthdays on this trip, so on friday the 16th, we celebrated with a dinner out in Manhattan. Larhn found a great place called BLT Market featuring local and organic fare. We were able to find a Dry Creek Pinot, and each of us had spectacular meals. The place was full of little thoughtful touches and the food choices were very unique. Ryan’s salad featured deviled quail eggs and my fish was served in a Le Creuset cast iron baking dish with creamed celery root, for example. The waiter even noticed when Larhn’s knife had become sticky and promptly replaced it. It is amazing to experience excellent customer service especially when you have been filming people talking about it for the week prior.

One of the other notable food experiences while in New York was having a real bagel at H&H Bagel. Next time you find yourself in NYC, you really owe it to yourself to try one. Not your average bagel to be sure. I talked about it for the rest of the day.

After all of the filming, we moved hotels from Fort Lee, NJ (Not somewhere you really want to visit), to Queens to be closer to the venue for the Vision Day which was in Brooklyn. We faced a two day edit marathon consisting of sorting through all of the footage, picking the best stuff and assembling it into several pieces to be used live. In addition, we readied music play lists, graphics, and the like. Even though it was a long couple of days with very little sleep, we all appreciated not having to fly out, fly home, and then do it all over again.

Once the Vision Day arrived, we headed over to Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy yard - my favorite factoid about Steiner is that they shoot the Mac vs. PC commercials there - and prepped the venue. As with most events, when the day of arrives, it goes by in a very quick blur, however, this was a really great day. John Mackey spoke, we had a really fun blooper real, and most importantly, we really felt the unified energy of the region. It was a fantastic event and really fun to produce.

We always love working for Whole Foods and this trip no different. I want to say thank you to all of the awesome Team Members in the NE region for hosting us so warmly. Until next time!