Photo: Love.Life
Will John Mackey’s New Love.Life Concept Change How We Think About Food And Health?
Whole Foods founder John Mackey, who officially stepped down as the CEO of the Amazon.com-owned grocer in 2022, has started another health food-focused endeavor. A new restaurant co-founded by Mr. Mackey called Love.Life is built around his belief in “food as medicine.” He sees the restaurant as one piece of a comprehensive health and wellness hub that he believes is powerful enough to impact the nation’s health.
The first Love.Life location opened this month in Culver City, CA, according to Fitt Insider. The menu contains items free from hydrogenated fats and 200 preservatives and additives. It has a section devoted to foods proven to treat and reverse chronic health conditions.
Mr. Mackey, next year, plans to launch physical wellness hubs co-branded with the restaurant, which will employ clinicians who “prescribe tailored lifestyle programming and precision wellness therapies for preventing and managing chronic illness.”
Medical and wellness offers integrated into the restaurant could leverage resources that Mr. Mackey has recently acquired, such as a telehealth platform now branded Love.Life Telehealth.
Mr. Mackey’s new restaurant, and the notion that eating choices are a cornerstone of public health, are in keeping with his long-espoused, animating personal ideology, which he calls “conscious capitalism.”
Just how far of an impact the restaurant and wellness chain could have on public health in the U.S. could depend on the price tag. While RetailWire was unable to find a list of prices for the menu of the first Love.Life location, such restaurants do not have a reputation for being cheap. Nor do projects involving Mr. Mackey in general, as Whole Foods maintained a consistent reputation for high prices under his tenure, leading to the retailer being stuck with the nickname “Whole Paycheck.”
While the chain struggled with its price perception after its acquisition by Amazon, more recent moves have indicated that Whole Foods may be attempting to turn over a new leaf. In January of 2023, the chain began pressuring its suppliers to lower prices as their costs began to moderate, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Do you see John Mackey pioneering a new lifestyle service with his Love.Life restaurant/health hub concept? Will the concept scale?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Melissa Minkow
Director, Retail Strategy, CI&T
Richard Hernandez
Merchant Director
I think it will depend on the value proposition.
It the product being offered at a price presented in an exception experience?
My guess is it will be.
It’s definitely a good and interesting idea. I’m just not sure there’s enough desire for this concept, and I’m imagining this is going to feel especially pricey in this economy.
People love value (inexpensive) and people love junk food. Expensive ‘food as medicine’ competing with inexpensive food as comfort just might be a tough sell. But I have to say I love the whole idea in an environment of pervasive obesity. But the ability to scale really is the big question. There is no shortage of exercise and diet regimens out there now and we still have an obesity problem. How widely available will these foods and ingredients really be? And depending on the price, what kind of demand will there be? I love the idea, but there are lots of questions on both the supply and demand side of this equation.
Mackey brings us a great idea, but I question if it is a scalable idea. We all desire and discuss food and health. Yes, they are intricately linked. But, one doesn’t have to spend much time in a supermarket or at a QSR to understand that factory food is the preference of America.
Who ?? I’m being a bit facetious…but perhaps only a bit: to the average American, John Mackey is an unknown name; which means his restaurants will be starting pretty much from scratch. (And for those thinking “it’s all food”: no, a restaurant and a grocery store have more differences than commonalities.) The idea is interesting, but “interesting” ideas are plentiful, and the sad reality is most of them don’t make it. So even if we give it above average odds they still aren’t favorable. Good luck, John.
Being in the LA area where this is launching, I think this restaurant will be incredibly successful. There are so many people wanting to eat plant-based and use food as a tool to stay healthy. Unless the pricing is incredibly out of line, it should thrive and scale in larger markets that are typically more health conscious.
I want to see this work, because most of us could use a reset in understanding the food we’re putting into our bodies, how it impacts our health, how it makes us feel. But timing is everything. The economic outlook indicates grocery shoppers are actively trading dollars down to save, so maybe this new food concept has a better chance when things look more stable.
John Mackey’s love life concept is bang on. As our parents and we age, I’ve found that the home deliver and ready made meals aren’t healthy. High levels of sodium is one of the major finds. Add to it, that many have medical issues or diseases that require specific diets and to be quite frank; there isnt anything out there that fits the bill. Having a ceritified nutritionist put together meal plans and the meals geared to specific needs is an opportunity waiting for someone to capture and dominate it.