Whole Foods Market 's History, Development, And Growth Of The Company Over Time Essay

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

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 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

The mergers with great reputation brands not only elevated Whole Foods Market’s character, but also stabled its market position. In 1991, Wellspring Grocery joined Whole Foods Market. Similar to Whole Food, Wellspring Grocery started with a positive attitude toward changing the market. Unlike other grocery stores, it wanted to bring healthy diet on shelves, rather than pills and canned food. This idea brought attention to what people are consuming daily. Second merger happened one year after Wellspring Grocery’s success. Bread and Circus, a company that used to sell natural food and wooden toys, valued costumer’s opinion. Costumers were happy to shop in Bread and Circus. Its expeditiously expansion caught Whole Foods Market’s attention. In order to stable its market not only in Taxes, it decided to purchase Bread and Circus. Last, Mrs. Gooch’s, a grocery store that targeted on allergic

[6] See Appendix B for more about the Whole Foods Foundation. As a result of the green movement, Whole Foods has added the 3R’s to their green mission: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.[7] See Appendix C for more about the Whole Foods green movement.

As with other superstores, Whole Foods offers a variety of products to their customers. These products include organic and natural foods of all sorts, body care items, and household care items (“Grocery”, n.d.). As with other grocery stores, these products are organized based on the category they fall into, as well as if they fit a certain dietary requirement (e.g. dairy, meat, cleaning products, vegan, gluten-free, etc.). The output efficiency is measured as with most companies by the profit brought in by each division. This past year (2013), sales improved to $1.29B from $1.17B in 2012, net profit improved from $466K to $551K with the net profit ratio improving from 3.98% to 4.26% (Yahoo! Finance, 2014). Additionally, Whole Foods’ return on assets improved to 4.26% from 3.98% in 2012 (Yahoo! Finance, 2014). All of these numbers show that Whole Foods is capitalizing on its momentum and continuing the success they’ve had in previous years. Another performance

* Whole Foods Market was founded in 1980 working with natural and healthy foods in Austin, Texas; it’s one of the world’s largest of natural and organic foods supermarkets. In 2009, the sales total $8 billion and had 289 stores in the U.S. The Whole Foods Market plans to come up with strategies to help improve the company but to do so understanding the core values plays a major role in the company’s planning. The strategies

Whole Foods Market, Inc. has long been admired as an innovative company with quality standards, a devotion to community and environmental responsiveness, a healthy growth model and highly-regarded employment practices. However, the company has faced recent difficulties as a result of the economic recession, increasing competition, and complications from acquisitions. To revitalize the company from historical lows in its toughest year in history, Whole Foods Market must reassess its costs, refocus its expansion strategies, and promote its brand to compete for the diminishing consumer spending dollar.

Whole Foods is a supermarket that has successfully become the leader in the organic food segment of the grocery industry. While traditional markets have low brand loyalty and recognition, Whole Foods has focused almost entirely on its brand image, causing their strategy to be one of differentiation over cost leadership. Whole Foods is known as being far more expensive than other chains, due to this brand recognition. In their press release for the Q4 2014 results, they describe their vision and sum up what helps them develop that brand recognition. “We hold the idea of “food” to a higher standard, banning more than 75 ingredients commonly found in other stores, and we believe our unparalleled quality standards

If you were to ask people if they enjoy going to work on Monday, I am sure most of them would give you a funny look, and say “No”. Americans dislike of their jobs is very evident. To see the magnitude of this just look on social media. On Fridays, there are vast amounts of thank god it’s Friday (TGIF) memes indicating how happy they are that they are done with work for the week. Many American simply do not enjoy working. However, a select few actually do. They enjoy their jobs and their co-workers. Sure, they may be far and few between, but if you ask one of the 54,000 Whole Foods Markets employees you are sure to get a “Yes”. If fact, not only does Whole Foods Markets employees enjoy their work, their company is one of the top 100 companies to work for according to Fortune.com. What is so special about Whole Foods Market that their employees actually enjoy their jobs, and what is makes them different from all the other companies out there?

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.

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

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.