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 今日主題：Whole Foods Market-- Victim of success  全食超市--成功的受害者

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 只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

 中英文稿：
Whole Foods Market-- Victim of success
全食超市--成功的受害者

A peddler of pricey organic and natural foods finds it has competition
販售昂貴的天然有機食品的商販發現了競爭對手

but it'll cost you
但是售價太高了

THE colourful chalkboards and baskets of fruit that greet customers at the entrances of Whole Foods Market's shops paint a rosy picture. Yet shares in the American seller of organic and natural food have fallen by more than 40% since hitting a peak last October, in a period when stockmarkets have been strong.
在全食超市的入口處，色彩斑斕的的黑板畫和籃筐裡五顏六色的水果迎接著顧客，描繪出一幅樂觀的景象。然而美國的天然有機食品售賣者的利潤自去年10月觸及峰值後，已經下降超過40%，這一時期股票市場一直很強勁。

It is not that the retailer is in immediate crisis: its latest quarterly figures, on July 30th, showed sales and profits both up a bit. And it is not that people are going off the idea of paying more for food produced without chemical fertilisers, pesticides or additives: the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements reckons that the industry's worldwide revenues were a record of 63 billion in 2012; and Techsci Research, a market-research firm, predicts that the American market for such foods—the world's largest—may grow by 14% by 2018.
這並不是說零售商的危機迫在眉睫：7月30日，最新一季度的資料顯示其銷售收入和利潤都有所回升。這並不是說人們不想花更多的錢來購買在生產過程中不施用 化肥、殺蟲劑和添加劑的食品，國際有機農業運動聯合會估計，世界範圍內此行業2012年年收入為630億；據一家名為Techsci Research的市場調查公司預測，到2018年，此類食品的世界第一大市場——美國市場的增長也許會達到14%。

The problem is that at Whole Foods, shoppers have been paying way over the cost of regular produce, and its success in getting them to do so has now attracted a lot of competitors, from rival organics chains like Sprouts and Trader Joe's to mass-market retailers like Walmart and Costco. As a result, the price premium for organic produce is crashing down. On a recent shopping trip, a pound of organic apples cost 2.99 at Whole Foods but just 1.99 at Sprouts and even less at Costco.
問題是，在全食超市，消費者購買農產品的花費比其常規生產成本高很多，且如今全食超市的成功已經吸引來更多的競爭對手，從有機生產鏈競爭對手如 Sprouts和Trader Joe's到大眾市場零售商如沃爾瑪、好事多。因此，有機農產品的溢價空間驟縮。近來在各大市場走一圈，一磅有機蘋果在全食超市要2.99美元，而在 Sprouts僅需1.99美元，在好事多超市價錢甚至更低。

The firm has been trimming costs to keep its margins up, but the slump in its share price reflects investors' expectation that this cannot continue, that profits will suffer and that Whole Foods' dominance of the market is coming to an end.
全食公司正削減成本以維持利潤空間，但其股價的暴跌反映了投資者的預期：這不能繼續，利潤就會受到影響，以至於全食公司的市場主導地位將會被終結。

That the company has had to recall a number of products—in late July it and other grocers recalled plums and peaches suspected of contamination with Listeria bacteria—has made it harder to maintain an air of superiority over its competitors. Organic foods' claim to superiority is questionable anyway. Both Britain's Food Standards Agency and the Annals of Internal Medicine, a journal, concluded after reviewing the extensive studies on the issue that there is no substantial difference in the nutritiousness of organics and non-organics. In some respects organics may be bad for the environment, because growing them uses land less efficiently than non-organics.
全食公司不得不召回大量農產品——在7月下旬，全食公司以及其他零售商召回了懷疑受到李斯特菌污染的梅子和桃子，這使其更難維持其競爭優勢。無論如何，有 機食品所宣稱的優勢存在問題。英國食品標準局與《內科醫學年鑒》雜誌，在對此問題的廣泛研究進行審查後得出結論：有機食品和非有機食品在營養成分上沒有實 質的區別。在某些方面，有機食品也許會對環境不利，因為種植有機蔬菜比種植非有機蔬菜的土地使用效率低。

As for “natural” foods, there is no official definition of this, in Americaat least; so the label, which Whole Foods also applies to many products, is close to meaningless. Alan McHughen, a botanist at the University of California, Riverside, argues that the whole industry is “99% marketing and public perception,” reeling people in through a fabricated concept of a time when food, and life in general, was simple and wholesome.
對於“天然”食品，沒有官方定義，至少在美國沒有；因此全食公司在其許多產品上貼上此類標籤，近乎毫無意義。加州大學河畔分校的植物學家Alan McHughen認為，整個行業就是99%的市場行銷和公眾看法，這些把人們捲入一個被捏造的觀念中：這個時代，食物和日常生活就是簡單與健康。

If true, the trick has worked nicely for Whole Foods. But its success has attracted so many imitators that it is losing its uniqueness. Even recent speculation about a takeover bid has failed to lift its shares. It may insist its food is sustainable. But it seems its prices are not.
如果真是如此，這招對全食公司很有幫助。但它的成功吸引來如此多的效仿者以至於它正失去其獨特性。甚至最近，一個關於收購全食公司的炒作也未能提振其股價。它也許堅持認為其食品是可持續發展的。但似乎其食品的售價並非如此。