I live in a town that has three Whole Foods for something like 100,000 people, plus 3-4 other similar chain or independent stores. I have a friend who spends a ton of money there. She told me that good, healthy and high quality food for her and her family is extremely important to her. Her family is organic only, gluten-free and vegan. These sorts of specialty foods, like anything organic or gluten free breads, crackers and pasta are REALLY expensive at Whole Foods. The sad thing is that I found the exact same brands in the natural food isle of our local "working man's" grocery store (Kroger), so they can compete with Whole Foods et al, and many are cheaper, some by several dollars. She wasn't interested to hear it. That's when I realized that a big part of her food experience revolves around buying at a high-end grocery store. She grew up as one of the more poor people in one of the richest cities in the country, which makes me wonder about her psychology.
One of the big money sinks in Whole Foods is the food/salad bar. In the big store in my town that section is 1/3 of the store and I'd bet a huge part of their profit. I am always shocked how much salads are, or prepared items like sushi - it costs nearly as much (if not the same or more) as having it made fresh in a restaurant, and the restaurant tastes far better and fresher. And even worse, Whole Foods has this reputation of high quality, organic foods, but a lot of that is just marketing. Another friend of mine did some asking, and a lot of the prepared or salad/olive/food bar items aren't even organic, let alone non-GMO or whatever.