Is Erewhon, With Its $22 Smoothies, Success Or Satire?

In Erewhon, Samuel Butler’s 1872 novel, illness is punished like a crime. In Erewhon, the luxury Los Angeles grocery store, health is wealth—its price tag ostensibly the measure of its virtue. The novel was a satire. The store, with its $22 smoothies and individually wrapped $19 strawberries, is something else entirely—though it’s difficult to say what. A business? A lifestyle? A satire of its very own?

What’s clear is that Erewhon (the store) has achieved a cultural cachet that few grocery chains could dream of. Less a supermarket than a sanctum, it operates on the principle that purity—of ingredients, of body, of mind—is the highest virtue. To enter an Erewhon is to move through a space where every purchase signals a kind of moral choice: biodynamic or conventional? Raw dairy or pasteurized? Cold plunge or cryotherapy? Here, health is not just an aspiration but a performance, and the price of admission is steep.

A Business Model Built on Aspiration

Erewhon’s origins are far humbler than its clientele. Founded in 1966 by Michio and Aveline Kushi, pioneers of the macrobiotic movement, the original Erewhon was a Boston-based health food store dedicated to organic, unprocessed ingredients. It was niche, almost ascetic—an embodiment of countercultural values. By the time Erewhon moved to Los Angeles, its ethos had begun to shift. Wellness had become an industry, and Erewhon adapted accordingly.

Today, Erewhon operates ten locations across Los Angeles County, each more akin to a high-end boutique than a traditional grocer. The stores are meticulously curated, their shelves stocked with everything from imported Japanese strawberries ($19 each) to custom celebrity smoothies ($17 and up). The branding is pristine, the lighting immaculate. If Whole Foods was once jokingly referred to as “Whole Paycheck,” Erewhon has refined the concept: here, a single grocery trip can easily exceed $300.

And yet, business is booming. In 2023, Erewhon reportedly generated $171.4 million in profit, an extraordinary feat for a company with so few locations. The secret? Exclusivity. Erewhon doesn’t just sell food; it sells access—to a lifestyle, a community, an aesthetic. Its success hinges on the same principle that underlies luxury fashion: if the price tag is high enough, people will buy it for the status alone.

The Morality of Wellness

Erewhon is ideological. Its shelves reflect a vision of health that is uncompromising, almost dogmatic. Dairy is raw. Meat is grass-fed. Supplements are abundant. Every item is designed to reassure the consumer that they are making the right choice, that they are optimizing, cleansing, healing. The unspoken implication: failure to adhere to these principles is not just a lapse in dietary discipline but a moral failing.

This, of course, is where the echoes of Butler’s Erewhon become almost too on-the-nose. In the novel, the Erewhonians punish illness as if it were a crime, treating the unwell as social pariahs. In the grocery store, the logic is subtler but no less insidious. The underlying message is clear: sickness is negligence. With the right adaptogens, the right probiotics, the right smoothie blend, wellness is yours. Therefore, if you are unwell, you simply haven’t tried hard enough—or spent enough.

Celebrity Endorsements and the Performance of Health

Erewhon’s ability to fuse commerce with culture is nowhere more evident than in its celebrity partnerships. The Hailey Bieber “Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie” ($17) became a viral sensation, cementing Erewhon as the go-to grocery store for the ultra-visible and ultra-aspirational. Bella Hadid, Kim Kardashian, and Jake Gyllenhaal have all been spotted browsing its aisles, reusable tote bags in hand.

This is wellness as spectacle. Buying a $20 smoothie at Erewhon is not just about consuming nutrients, but about being seen consuming nutrients. The store thrives on its Instagramability, its ability to signal a certain kind of self-care; one that is expensive, meticulous, and deeply aestheticized. It is not enough to be healthy. oOne must curate their health, aligning it with the latest trends, the most exclusive ingredients.

It would be tempting to call Erewhon an elaborate joke—a living satire of the wellness industry’s extremes. But satire requires intent, and Erewhon is entirely earnest in its mission. It is not mocking the commodification of health, butperfecting it. If Butler’s Erewhon was a warning, Erewhon the store is its fulfilment—a world where wellness is not a right but a privilege, where the pursuit of health has become indistinguishable from the pursuit of status.

And perhaps that is what makes it so unsettling. Not that Erewhon exists, but that it thrives. That we have built a society where selling a $19 strawberry is not just possible, but desirable. That the high cost of wellness is no longer questioned but accepted. That we have, in effect, stepped into Butler’s world—only without realizing that we were supposed to be laughing.