Business Analysis : Whole Foods Essay

The organic food industry has seen a huge spike in growth that is expected to continue into the future due to an increase in consumption. This will provide Whole Foods Market with huge opportunities. In addition, a wave of ethical and responsible consumption has swept across America. Whole Foods’ decision to pursue sustainable activities will certainly give consumers an added incentive to purchase its organic products.

Whole Foods Market started off as being Safer Way natural grocery store in 1978. However they were not

Whole Foods is a retailer that specializes in organic foods and it has done an excellent job of determining its target market and how to position itself. Instead of going head to head with large food retailers such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods has found a niche market that works perfectly for itself. This niche market is one that prides itself on being health conscious and environmentally responsible and Whole Foods has done a great job of positioning itself in the same way through its environmentally safe actions and its use of the local community to stock its stores. However, as Whole Foods grows and expands, a person has to wonder if the company will be able to maintain this same position or will have to make

In his book, The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference (2000), Malcolm Gladwell highlights the power of intelligent action and the potential of little changes for starting epidemics. Concepts such as the law of few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context arouse epidemics both in macro-level and in micro-level. In detail, the law of few affirms the influence on communication. Connectors, mavens, and salesmen each has abilities to conjoin, collect, and cajole; they distribute information globally. The stickiness factor refers to a technique, which emphasize and allow information to stick in the minds of consumers. Last, the power of context stresses that both individual’s reaction and community’s cohesion can

Whole Foods was established in 1980 with one store in Austin, Texas. Today, Whole Foods is the world’s largest leader in natural and organic foods. There are over 310 stores in North America and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods is committed to the finest natural and organic foods available, sustainable agriculture and have one of the strictest of quality standards. Whole Foods offers customers a wide variety of products. “Natural” refers to food that is free of growth hormones or antibiotics, where “certificated

As our short-term objectives evolve with Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s, it is important to identify and clearly state our objectives the long run.

Why would Whole Foods tell such lies? Organic Products do not go through stringent standards. All you need for organic certification is the paperwork. Did you know organic farms use so-called natural pesticides? Natural pesticides are not regulated or even understood as their synthetic conventional pesticides. Studies show that conventional and organic farms use the same amount of pesticides and both are considered safe. The website also goes on to claim that organic foods taste better. Again I go back to that apple. Can you really tell a difference? Before writing this article, I used my family as guinea pigs. I even blindfolded them to it fun. Two out of my five family members chose the conventional grown apple. Whole foods continue to make all these accusations about how much better organic foods are by misleading the public. (3) Remember from earlier, this is a billion dollar business. For the two apples I purchased, one apple cost $0.85 and the organic one cost $2.34 and it wasn’t much bigger in size. (1)

Essay Question: In what ways does this movie demonstrate the “Iron Triangle” and its powerful influence in the manner that our government functions?

Food Inc. opens in an American supermarket and draws attention to the unnatural nature of year-round tomatoes and boneless meat. It pulls aside the curtain that is concealing the truth about food from the consumer. After the brief intro, the movie shifts its focus to the topic of fast food and its impact on the meat industries. Fast food virtually started with McDonald’s. When they decided to simplify their menu and hire employees that repeated one task over and over for minimum wage, the result was the fast food phenomenon that swept the United States, and then the world. Today, McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef and potatoes in the United States, and is one of the largest purchasers of pork, chicken, tomatoes, and apples. Though

Whole Foods' utilizes a differentiated strategy, focused on organic and natural foods. This distinguishes them from mainstream grocery competitors, and puts them into competition with other specialized grocery outlets (Urani, 2008). This differentiation, combined with more traditional grocery industry size and operations, gives the company an advantage over most of its competitors.

Trader Joe’s has internally created a brand for its company using a different strategy as compared to other supermarkets. Its approach of effective relationship-building program pleases customers through unrivaled customer service. This case study presents many factors that play a part in their customer relations strategy. Trader Joe’s does not focus on advertising. Rather, it focuses on effective internal communications with employees to build strong customer relationships. Trader Joe’s takes a progressive approach to internal communications by allowing their employees to bring their own creativity to the workplace, by providing them with the context in which their role contributes to the business success, and asking for employees

Over the years Whole Foods Incorporated has faced a number of challenges when trying to adhere with its mission of stocking and retailing organic foods which contain no artificial flavors, sweeteners and colors. The major challenge has been how to increase revenues without stocking foods that contain less than 95% organic ingredients (Johnston & Szabo, 2011). The products that have been most affected have been cosmetics which are not regulated by the food and drugs administration board. In 2011 John Mackey the founding chief executive officer of the company admitted that the company had lost touch with its mission and had consequently stocked a bunch of goods that contained a higher percentage of inorganic ingredients. The United States Food

Marketed as ‘America’s healthiest grocery store’ the company has successfully grown to 408 stores across the world with sales of $14 billion in 2014 (Whole Foods Market, 2015). The firm is positioned as an upmarket grocery due to the emphasis on natural, organic origins, and as a result are able to charge a premium for their products. Through efficiently running its operations and stores, Whole Foods are able to maintain healthy 4.02% profit margins (Financial Times, 2015) and operating margins well above the American grocery store industry average at 6.58% (Bloomberg, 2015). Looking at 2015’s quarter 1 figures it is clear to see that Whole Foods have had a hugely successful year with sales of $4.7 billion, up 10% from the same period last year. Furthermore, they opened 9 new stores and have signed a further 11 new leases.

Whole Foods Market has expanded by a mixture of opening its own new stores and acquiring already existing stores. Today WFM does not follow this strategy, instead their motivation is to open its own large stores. This is due to noticeable sales differences in larger stores as opposed to smaller stores. WFM locates these newer stores in upscale areas of urban metropolitan centers and high-traffic shopping locations. Not all WFMs are isolated structures; some are located in strip malls. WFM offers a larger selection of natural and organic foods than any other grocery store. WFMs marketing expenditure is extremely small. They spend a measly 0.5% of their revenues on advertising. Their chief marketing strategy relies on word-of-mouth. WFM strives to meet or exceed customer expectations. This is so customers receive competent, knowledgeable, and friendly service and become advocates of WFM. The employees here have a decentralized team approach for store operations. This is so some personnel, merchandising, and operating

Does your local grocery store have a section dedicated to natural or organic foods? I bet it does. That probably wasn't the case in 1980, when Whole Foods Market opened their first store in Austin, Texas. In the past 30 years, Whole Foods Market grocery chain has become the worldwide leader in natural and organic foods.