Whole Foods Social Responsibility Essay

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 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 was founded by John Mackey as a healthy, socially responsible lifestyle that customers can identify with (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p 29-1). The company differentiated itself from competitors by focusing on quality as excellence and innovation that allows them to charge premium price for premium products (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p 29-1).

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

Whole Foods Market, Inc, is an Austin, Texas based foods grocery that has the finest natural and organic food available, including produce, seafood, grocery, meat and poultry, bakery, prepared foods and catering, beer, wine, cheese; in addition to whole body, floral, pet products, and household products. Whole Foods is among the most profitable health food retailers in the United States. The rapid growth and market success has much to do with having remained a uniquely mission-driven company, highly selective about what they sell, dedicated to their core values, stringent quality standards, and committed to sustainable agriculture.

B. Mission Statement - Barbara Farfan who writes for about.com states, “The mission statement of the Whole Foods Company and Whole Foods Markets begins with its motto, which is "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet" The Whole Foods mission explains and defines what that motto means. This mission explanation includes..."Whole Foods - We obtain our products locally and from all over the world, often from small, uniquely dedicated food artisans. Whole People - We recruit the best

Whole Foods Market, Inc. which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, is an American foods supermarket chain it was founded by John Mackey who currently serves as the CEO of Whole Foods. To sum up their mission and vision statement, Whole foods as a company strives to help out in promoting positive health and well-being of people, this includes team-members, customers and the whole planet in general. Some of their core values include:

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 Food launched it’s Whole Trade Guarantee in April 2007, it was an initiative emphasizing the social responsibility and equitable compensation for producers from the developing world. Whole Foods justifies the its program as a commitment to benefiting to all stakeholders. The program reduced immediate profitability by paying foreign workers better wages, the investment improves relationships, improves the company’s reputation, and serves as a great example of the Whole Foods’ commitment to social responsibility.

This makes it easier on customers working full time and families to obtain healthy goods without having to waste their precious time. While Whole Foods has numerous ways of getting products to their customers, how do they obtain these superior quality products themselves? One main question consumers have about Whole Foods is how they get these products in a world where GMO crops are taking over? Well the short answer is that Whole Foods has a long list of trustworthy and reliable

The Whole Food’s Mission is Whole Food, Whole People, Whole Planet. Whole Foods consist of the highest quality, least processed, most flavorful and naturally preserved foods available locally and grown from all over the world. Whole People result from empowering, the best people they can recruit, to make many operational decisions, creating a respectful workplace where team members are treated fairly and are highly motivated to succeed. Whole Planet is the belief that companies, like individuals, must assume their share of responsibility for our planet through supporting organic farming on a global basis. Whole Foods mission statement does an excellent job of describing their present situation and the purpose of the company going forward. Their mission statement identifies the company’s product being whole foods, specifies the buyer needs that they are seeking to satisfy, and it gives the company their own identity by separating them from the other natural and organic grocers through environmental stewardship.

Carroll’s global corporate social responsibility pyramid is a model that summarizes the responsibility of multinational corporations to ensure they are pursuing certain responsibilities correlating to philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic aspects (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). On Carroll’s global corporate social responsibility pyramid, Whole Foods would be located on the Level 4. Level 4 focuses on economic responsibility, and Whole Food is infamous for their policies relating to economic responsibility. Whole Foods consistently works to provide their customers with organic food that is produced from humane and environmentally conscious vendors (Cheretis & Mujtaba, 2014). Whole Foods also works with their vendors to ensure they have a relationship

Examples of reducing include: insisting on recycled paper, when and if one needs to print something;

Whole Foods Market offers value for the clients through the mission of whole foods-whole people- whole planet concept. It is through this chain of activities that company manages to differentiate the products as well as attending to customers’ requirements in a swift manner. The chain also allows the company to strengthen the whole food market brand. Clients can purchase an organic tomato or onion from different alternative shops, but with

On a better note, WFM does an excellent job on designing the interior of their stores so the customers and employees feel at home. Not only does the interior set up make you feel at home but it also exquisitely displays all of its products so that the customer is interested enough to at least check it out. Finally, WFM strives to encourage and teach people about organic foods and the positive effects it has for the consumer and the environment.