Marketing Plan For Whole Foods Market

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

On averaged their stores are roughly 38,000 square feet and their locations typically carried 21,000 SKUs. They make two-thirds of its revenue by selling bakery, perishable items, and prepared foods. (Ager & Roberto, 2014). Peoples tend to shop at Whole Food Market because of their high-quality natural and organic food. In today’s world peoples are more concern about health concise and effect of pesticide products, more people choose to have organic fruits and vegetables. Whole Foods get most of their produces from local people which are natural and organic, which will help them gain more customer than other company because of increasing demand of organic food (Whole Foods Market History, n.d). They also have a strong brand image and they were the first supermarket who commit to completely eliminating disposable plastic grocery bags to help protect the environment. They also sell many USDA-certified organic

A target market is a group of customers a company has decided to ultimately aim its marketing efforts towards. Whole Foods has two different target market groups that regularly shop at their establishments. The first is the primary group that ranges in age between 22-40 years old men and women with college educations who care deeply about the sustainability of the earth and favor all-natural goods. These people truly believe in the entire brand experience and make shopping at a health food store a lifestyle decision.

Whole Foods Market is probably the world leader in retailing natural and organic foods, with over 433 stores in North America and the United Kingdom (Whole Foodsmarket.com). With a commitment to provide the highest quality of natural and organic foods at competitive prices; they steadily continue to expand globally. This paper will provide some insight on the advantages and disadvantages of perhaps why we should invest in this company’s stock.

Whole Foods was founded back in 1980 in Austin, Texas and led the industry for 20 years by focusing efforts on selling quality fresh, local, and organic produce. At Whole Foods, they consider "quality the highest form of value, which means strict standards that take into account such things as artificial food preservatives, sustainable seafood, animal welfare, antibiotics in meat and pesticides in vegetables" (Wholefoodsmarket.com, Mission, and Values).

In 1978, John Mackey and Renee Lawson borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open a small natural foods store called SaferWay in Austin. Two years later, Mackey partnered with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to merge SaferWay with the latter’s Clarksville Natural Grocery, resulting in the opening of the original Whole Foods Market (WFM). Since then, WFM has expanded to 466 stores in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom, averaging over nine million customer visits each week. “The company has always represented the highest quality, selection and service while still offering prices customers are willing to pay on premium products”. (Whole Foods Market,

Whole Foods continues to grow as the leader in organic and natural grocery supplier in the United States, Canada, and England. The company has continued to open new stores in new markets, as well as, opening two 365 by Whole Foods Market stores. Whole Foods became the industry leader by providing high quality natural and organic food products for consumers, which is a better and healthier product for consumers to consume. This is a big part of their competitive advantage. Other grocery stores are limited in their organic supplies, where as at Whole Foods, it is the primary focus. Another comparison is that with the help of Instacart, Whole foods is now the leader when it comes to delivery of fresh groceries then any other grocery in the industry. (Quarterly Results)

Whole Foods has been adaptive in fitting its competitive strategy to its situation. The store first grew to prominence by being a stylish antithesis to the crunchy mom-and-pop organic grocery stores, providing a relatively normal but

Whole Foods Market was initiated its business in Austin, Texas, Their initial creators were John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, owners of different places where you got natural foods. The original Whole Foods Marketplace started in 1980 with only 19 people in the company. Now Whole Food Market is the best seller in natural and organic foods. At this moment they had more than 310 stores in the North America and Europe. The company keeps the excellent quality in the industry all the time.

Whole Foods Market is one of the most successful companies in the organic foods sector. The company was established in 1978 with a small natural foods store. The owners started this business in the attempt to develop a natural foods store chain in the U.S. In order to reach this objective, the small company had to merge and to acquire other small businesses that were necessary in order to expand the business. Some of the companies that Whole Foods Market acquired or merged with are represented by Wellspring Grocery, Bread & Circus, Mrs. Gooch's, Merchant of Vino, Allegro Coffee, Harry's Farmer Markets, Fresh Fish, Wild Oats Markets, and others.

Whole Foods as a company in general does not compete on low prices. It prices the products based on the value its customers have for the products. Whole Foods as a company was established in 1984. Given the fact that firm’s profit is high enough for it to stay in business, an objective now is to increase sales revenue which will in turn lead to increases in market share and profit. Currently Whole Foods is trying to expand its market share in Europe (London) and Canada. Another important objective of the company is social responsibility. Whole Foods recognizes its obligation to customers and society in general, so it sells organic and environmentally friendly products accompanied with high quality services. In terms of types of competitive market, Whole Foods can be described as monopolistic competition. There is some extent of price competition and much extent of advertising with the purpose to differentiate company’s products from other big and small retailers. Company’s overall pricing strategy can be described as above-market pricing. The store deliberately set premium prices for its products, especially when it comes to organically grown fruits and vegetables,

Whole Foods Market, INC (ticker: WFM) one of the main leaders in supermarket/grocery industry. The company opened its first store in 1980 in Austin, Texas and it was among few supermarkets that were providing natural products. (1) Whole Foods Market was the first store to emphasis on organic food with a clear mission to be a provider of products with the highest quality. Whole Foods started expanding into different states across United States by mergers and acquisitions. Their first international expansion was into Canada in 2002, followed by and acquisition of seven Fresh & Wild stores in United Kingdom in 2004 which was the largest chain of organic grocery stores. (2) In order to lock their strong presence Whole Foods needed to make sure that their mission is heard and that they are faithful to their values. They are known for the highest quality products, before a product is available for purchase in stores it first goes through multiple steps of quality control and only when the requirements are met, the product makes it way to shelves. In order to satisfy organic standard, products need USDA approval, which prohibits the use of genetically modified organisms, pesticides, use of antibiotics or growth hormones in livestock. (3) Whole Foods is an environmentally sustainable, an example would be that they encourage their shoppers to either reuse shopping bags or they provide paper bags that are recyclable, they also donate good amount of money for environmental

Whole Foods Market is one of the biggest organic and natural whole food suppliers in the world. They provide a wide variety of select foods that are without hormones or antibiotics and are stamped with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s stamp of approval. They value the fact that they can provide people with access to healthy food and be identified with being socially and environmentally responsible.

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

Whole Foods Market began in 1970 as a local supermarket. Over the past 31 years, Whole Foods Market has grown from a single store in Austin, Texas, to becoming one of the worldwide leaders in providing consumers with natural and organic foods. They have grown to over 300 stores in both North America and the United Kingdom. (Whole Foods Market, Inc., 2011) This report examines the chief elements of the strategy that Whole Foods Market has put into place. Also, it uses past financial data to provide an assessment of the condition of the company going forward. Those assessments include recommendations of future actions, along with concerns I have about the way the company is currently operating and some difficulties that may be on the way.