Whole Foods Market Inc.

John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, the co-founders of the current Whole Foods Market, simply wanted to provide quality healthy food to the American consumer. This was about three decades ago when the first store opened. According to Mackey, making money was not the first priory, but helping people to eat better was. Happily for Mackey and Lawson, the residents of Austin Texas were hungry, no pun intended, for just this type of product. At the time, though there were several small independent healthy food stores, there was not a full sized grocery store. This is what set Mackey and Lawson apart from their competitors, their enormous sized health food grocery store was a huge success and now Whole Foods Market (WFM) is not only a

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 a leader in the quality and differentiation food business, they offer natural and organic products. Whole food market was opened in 1980 by John Mackey, Renee Lawson Hardy, Craig Weller and Mark Skiles. It was founded in Austin, Texas. In 1984, they start to expand their business out of Austin such as Houston, Dallas and later to others states within the US. In 2002, they entered the Canadian market in Toronto and they entered the United Kingdom in 2004 by acquiring seven Fresh & Wild stores (Whole Foods Market History, n.d). Whole Foods Market is ranked as the nation’s leading retailer of natural and organic

Whole Foods Market Inc. is a popular retail destination for natural and organic foods and byproducts, since its establishment in 1980 by four local businesspeople in Austin, Texas. It is notable for supporting sustainable agriculture, promoting the reduction of waste and consumption of nonrenewable resources and encouraging environmentally safe cleaning and store-maintenance programs. The company showcases its ethics and social responsibility through its green mission, foundations, and Whole Trade Guarantee.

The development of dedicated distribution systems by the large integrated retailers. The development and application of scanning systems provided the necessary information for the supply chain to be reversed from 'producer push ' to 'consumer pull '. A consequence of this process is the decline of traditional wholesalers and cash and carries that has the effect of further disadvantaging small retailers. The emergence of retail chains as national brands

11. How did companies and stores expand? Which industries suffered at the expense of expanding retailers?

* In 1996 Whole Foods Markets acquires Fresh Field Markets picking up 22 stores located on the east coast and Chicago area for 4.8 million shares of common stock and an option for 549,000 additional shares. (Thompson, 2010; C-13)

1.2 Executive Summary Whole Foods Market opened its doors in 1980 in the city of Austin Texas. The idea was clear Whole Foods Market wanted to sell natural and organic products, and with only 19 people working for Whole Foods Market, they were launched into the adventure of opened a supermarket focusing only on natural products regardless of price. One of the main reasons for Whole Foods Market is to have the best supermarkets, with the widest range of organic and natural products, while the goal is to have international presence as a brand in the natural products of higher quality. In a short time the chain of Whole Foods Market has had a most important growth in the supermarket industry in terms of natural and organic products.

Whole Foods Market (WFM) is leading natural and organic food supermarket in the world. It started as one-store entrepreneur shop and has since grown into an $8 billion a year. By 2008, Whole Food Market had 264 stores in the United States that host its headquarters. It had six stores in Canada and five stores in the United Kingdom (Harbin, 2000). It is located in an area of 80000 square foot flagship store in Austin. The CEO and founder, John Mackey has cast the image of a niche retailer and enjoys profits in the competitive retail industry that is sometimes characterized by low profits margins. The company has over 50000 members that strived to meet its corporate goals.

The grocery industry is highly fragmented, with a multitude of strong regional players (Safeway, Publix, Kroeger, Wegmans, etc.). The largest grocery retailer in the United States is Wal-Mart, with an estimated 33% share. Other major retailers are targeting this segment of the industry, focused on a relatively narrow selection of key commodity foods at relatively low prices (Forbes, 2011). Whole Foods competes in a segment occupied by differentiated grocery players including Trader Joe's, Fresh Market and a highly fragmented selection of local and regional upscale and health-conscious grocery stores. The big players in the industry usually carry ranges of organic and natural products as well, siphoning off some business from Whole Foods. As Whole Foods grows, it comes into competition with mainstream grocery retailers more frequently (McLaughlin & Martin, 2009).

Whole foods Inc. is categorized as a grocery store (SIC code 5411). In the grocery store industry, Whole foods faces competitions from many powerful companies; namely Trader Joe’s, Sprouts and The Kroger’s Company. According to fortune 500, the ranking of all these companies are as follows: Kroger (20), Whole Foods (214), and Sprouts (762). Trader Joe’s is not listed. The Fortune 500 is an annual list by Fortune magazine that ranks the 500 largest U.S. corporations by total revenue in their respective fiscal years (Fortune 500, n.d.).

Since 1980, Whole Foods Markets has grown from a small local store in Austin, Texas, to the largest retail chain of natural and organic foods in the United States. Whole Foods has been leading the natural and organic foods movement across the United States, working to gain acceptance among the growing number of consumers interested in eating healthier foods. The company has built a reputation for being selective in the products sold and only providing its customers with the highest quality foods available. The mission of the company is to advance the cause of long term sustainable agriculture practices while promoting a cleaner environment. Thus,

Whole Foods Market (WFM) was founded in 1980 as a single local grocery store by John Mackey for natural and health foods. By 1991, WFM had 10 up-and-running stores with revenues of about $92.5 million in United States Dollars (USD), and a net income of about $1.6 million in USD. In 1992 WFM became a publicly traded company with its stock trading on the NASDAQ. By 2006 Whole Foods Market had progressed into the world’s largest retail chain of natural and organic foods supermarket. As of September 2007 WFM has 276 stores up-and-running. 263 of the stores are located throughout 37 of the U.S. and the District of Columbia. 7 of the stores are in Canada and 6 in the U.K.

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® is the world’s leading food market chain of natural and organic foods, with 193 stores in thirty-one states, Canada and the United Kingdom. Originally established in Austin, Texas in 1980. They own and operate many subsidiaries. Allegro Coffee Company was formed in 1977 and purchased by Whole Foods Market in 1997, currently acting as their coffee roasting and distribution center. Acquired in 1996, Pigeon Cove is Whole Foods’ seafood processing facility, the sole food market to own and operate a waterfront seafood facility. Two other subsidiaries are Produce Field Inspection Office and Select Fish, which is Whole Foods’ West Coast seafood processing facility acquired in 2003. In addition, the company has eight distribution centers, seven regional bake houses and four commissaries (Pearce & Robinson, 2013).