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Whole Foods Markets : Business And Society

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BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY

Whole Foods Markets

Business and Society

Mohammed Abujabal, Audrey Bingaman, Michael Fassl, Alyssa Marshall, Sarah McCaw, Courtney Reiley

April 20, 2015

Company History
The origin of Whole Foods Market began as a small natural food store under the name Safer Way Natural Foods in Austin, Texas, in 1980. As interest in the natural food movement quickly grew, Safer Way soon merged with another local natural grocer. This union was called Whole Foods Market (“Newsroom,” 2015). Though the company started with a mere 19 employees, attraction to this new idea grew rapidly, and it was not long before the company began to build a chain of stores through several acquisitions. Due to the increased interest in natural foods nationwide and very low competition at the time, Whole Foods Market began acquiring food stores all over the nation throughout the 1990s. By 2004, the company had expanded internationally to Canada and the UK “Newsroom,” 2015). Today the company has 414 stores in the US, Canada, and United Kingdom, and approximately 88,000 team members (“Newsroom,” 2015).
Brand Development and Company Growth
Product Development. Though Whole Foods Market began as a company dedicated to solely providing natural foods free of preservatives and other harmful agents, this came at a cost. Shopping at Whole Foods on a continual basis quickly got very expensive for most. With this in mind, Whole Foods decided to launch their own more

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