Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Tour

On Monday evening, Todd & I had a date at Whole Foods.  Instead of getting dinner at their diner or from their salad bar, we actually went on the Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Tour.  My mom did this a couple months ago and told me about it.  It's a free tour of the store that they offer once per month where they take about an hour walking you around the store (there were 7 people in our tour) and show you deals and how to save money at  "Whole Paycheck."  Sounds kinda lame, right?  Well, not when it involves tons of free food samples and beer! 

We arrived at Whole Foods and were given these bags packed with coupons, recipes, and free items like a bottle of water, can of pop, roll of aluminum foil, Clif Kid's bars, fruit strips/leathers, orange juice boxes, and a few other items.  All items were their store brand, 365 Everyday Value.  Hence, the name of the tour.

Lots of goodies to start with

Since it was Monday, they were having their 6 Pack Monday beer & food tasting.  Anybody could try the food samples but Todd also paid $5 for 6 different beer samples too.  As our tour guide, Jan, walked us around the store, she would stop and talk about different products and then grab an item off the shelf, open it, and let us try it.  We sampled a ton of stuff: crackers, cream cheese, milk, cookies, cheese as well as the food samples at the beer stands.  I didn't eat dinner beforehand and was legitimately full after all the samples.  She would also stop and let us pick items off the shelves to take home....FOR FREE!  We were each able to pick a bag of pasta, jar of sauce, can of beans, and greek yogurt.  At the end of the tour, we were each able to pick an item that we sampled and didn't finish to take home as well.  I got the cheese cubes.

Probably $20-30 in free groceries

While at times the tour was a little slow (and the store was really crowded), it was well worth the 75 minutes of my time (and hopefully Todd's time) to learn more about the store and score a bunch of free groceries.

According to the store calendar at the Whole Foods in Dublin, the next tour is on Monday, August 23 at 6:30 PM.  You have to call to reserve your spot but we had no problem scheduling our tour.