Whole Foods Entering Foreign Market

Whole Foods Market’s first retail location was in Austin, Texas. Today there are 342 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The growth of this health conscious conglomerate happened over the years by strategic acquisitions of profitable independent stores throughout United States. Mackey’s idealism and respect is exhibited in his openness about the contributions of these retailers to the success of WFM, as the website provides an in depth summary of each acquisition and its contribution to promoting healthier food choices (Whole Foods Market History, 2014). After four years in Austin, Texas WFM branched out into the city of Houston when it purchased the Whole Foods Company, and shortly after, on the west coast, a new store was built in Palo Alto, California. Subsequently WFM began aggressive acquisitions over the next few years, which help to accelerate the growth rate of WFM in other geographical locations. In 2002 WFM opened in Canada and in 2004 through the acquisition of United Kingdom’s grocery chain Fresh & Wild, it opened seven stores. Holistic eating is a worldwide affair that WFM is taking advantage

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 will need to research and figure out marketing strategies to keep the customers loyal to Whole Foods. One of the main reasons customers will go to different supermarkets that have organic foods is because of the different department stores inside the grocery market. For instance, some grocery stores sell organic vegetables, but also have regular vegetables. Some of the larger grocery stores have banks, photo stores, insurance companies that make your stop at the larger grocery store

Whole Foods, just like any other retailer right now, has been struggling with the economy. The external environment has been changing in uphill and downhill motions daily, something that Whole Foods has never experienced before. Not only is there pressure on the financials of the corporation, but also there is the pressure to go green.

Historically Whole Food Market has grown by opening new locations and acquisitions within affluent neighborhoods that target wealthier more educated consumers Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p 29-12). Whole Foods Market has been the number one supplier of natural

The first Whole Foods was hardly a small market. It was a 10,500 square foot supermarket with only nineteen employees. And although it wasn’t the first natural food supermarket, the threesome found instant success. Their stores not only included the typical natural food fare such as organic fruits and

This situation makes Whole Foods vulnerable to business cycles that affect United States. Like noted during the 2008 economic meltdown, the food industry in the US was highly affected and the sales decline by over 50 percent. Sales decline resulted in loss of jobs, salary cuts and the rise of unemployment leading to the decline of income. As the US organic and natural foods industry is high concentrated with rival firms such as Costco, Stop N’ Shop, Target, Traders Joe’s and Sam’s Club, Wild Harvest, Wal-Mart and Safeway (Harasta, & Hoffman, 2013), Whole Foods should venture into foreign markets and in particular Europe. An expansion in Europe offers vast prospective growth because of its large population. In addition, the Europe organic food market is more sophisticated than that of the US in reference to public acceptance and suppliers. In Europe, the target should be based on area demographics: the location with 40 percent or more people because they are probable of having more nutritional knowledge. (Harasta, & Hoffman,

Whole Foods has become the world’s largest retail chain of natural and organic foods supermarkets. Not only is their focus to transform the way consumers look at food and its natural benefits, Whole Foods is looking to make a difference in the world with their products. Whole Foods appears to be in a rapidly growing market. Whole Foods has worked hard to set their products apart from other grocery retail chains and while their prices might still be considered high across the board, their products are geared towards a more health conscious individual who is willing to pay more for a healthier product.

Amazon: The recent acquisition by Amazon presents the opportunity for Whole foods to benefit from a rich supply chain and to update and modernize their digital presence.

Whole Foods Market, Inc. was founded and created by four business people in Austin, TX during 1980. The founders opened Whole Foods Market because they wanted a supermarket that offered natural foods. This company was able to be successful because at the time they opened there were less than half a dozen natural food supermarkets in the United Sates. In 1984, they build stores in Houston and Dallas, they then moved to New Orleans, and eventually to the West Coast. A major part of Whole Foods growth has come from the many mergers and acquisitions with companies that have occurred throughout the years. The mergers and acquisitions gave Whole Foods’ even revenues to move to the East Coast.

Recommendation Whole Foods Market was the pioneer and leader of the organic and natural food sector for many years. The company had established their initial success due to a broad differentiation strategy. Unfortunately, large conglomerates consisting of Kroger “a best-cost provider” and Wal-Mart “a low-cost provider” have been able to provide the same unique goods and service as Whole Foods Market, while staying true to their respective competitive strategies. In result, making the organic and natural food sector a possibility for people of all socioeconomic classes. Due to the emergence of competition, Whole Foods Market is under extreme pressure from outside forces and will seemingly never return to their once prominent position.

Whole Foods Market offers a wide collection of natural and organic products with an importance on unpreserved foods. The company offers a massive variety of products from groceries, catering and prepared foods, body care, lifestyle products, and supplements. Aside from the products, the company established many more brands such as ‘365 Organic Everyday Day Value’, ‘Health Starts Here’, and ‘Whole Fields’, just to name a few that emphasize an approach to eating healthy by building better meals and endorsing animal welfare on ranches and farm.

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.

Whole Foods Market (WFM), founded in 1980, had evolved and expanded from a local supermarket selling natural and health foods into a big leader of the natural and organic food industry in the U.S. WFM used the slogan “Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet” to indicate the company mission of promoting organically and naturally grown food, more healthy eating, which helped to sustain the world’s entire ecosystem. The vision of the founder of WFM, John Mackey, was to build WFM to an international brand that providing greatest quality of natural and organic foods in those areas where WF stores located. WFM implemented different strategies on company growth, store location, product line, pricing, merchandizing, marketing and customer service, social media, and purchasing and distribution to fulfill its eight core values (Thompson, A. A., Peteraf, M. A., Gamble, J., & Strickland, A. J., 2016).