Whole Foods Case Analysis Essay

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

Whole Foods Market, Inc. (WFM) lives through their motto of “Whole Food, Whole People, Whole Planet.” WFM opened their first store in Austin, Texas with 19 employees in 1980. Today, WFM has 311 stores in the US, Canada and the UK, and employs more than 72,700 employees. Whole Foods Market is one of the largest natural and organic food retailers in North America. WFM has grown to its size today mostly through mergers and acquisitions of such brands as Bread and Circus and Natures Heartland. In 2011 and 2012 Whole Foods Market was added to the Fortune 100 “Best Places to Work” list. Fortune Magazine (2012)

Whole Foods Markets has built its brand by promoting the highest quality, most wholesome foods available. With increased scrutiny surrounding the FDA’s food labeling requirements and the USDA’s organic foods certification standards on suppliers; WFM

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

In 1978, John Mackey and Renee Lawson borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open a small natural foods store called SaferWay in Austin. Two years later, Mackey partnered with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to merge SaferWay with the latter’s Clarksville Natural Grocery, resulting in the opening of the original Whole Foods Market (WFM). Since then, WFM has expanded to 466 stores in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom, averaging over nine million customer visits each week. “The company has always represented the highest quality, selection and service while still offering prices customers are willing to pay on premium products”. (Whole Foods Market,

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.

WFM Industry: Grocery Stores | Whole Foods Market, Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance. (n.d.). Retrieved February 04, 2016, from https://finance.yahoo.com/q/in?s=WFM

A strategy of Whole Foods’ in 2014 and 2015 was to be disciplined and opportunistic with their real estate purchases. They prefer to open new stores in existing areas and then expand into new areas. Since 2011, Whole Foods’ has opened 100 stores, which is great for growth, but was a huge part of their decline in 2015. As previously mentioned, Whole Foods’ opened 38 new stores in 2015. This large expansion of stores allowed them to produce $1.1 billion in cash flows from their operations, invest $851 million in capital expenditures, and resulted in a free cash flow of $278 million. Those numbers were wonderful for the companies’ shareholders, who got $184 million in quarterly dividends. In 2015, they focused too much on opening new stores, rather than focusing on preexisting stores. Customers said their stores are getting “shabby with mediocre customer service” (Whole Foods’ Sales). This was a huge turn off for many people, especially when they can go to a store like Sprouts, spend less and get just better service, and natural food. The three-year trend for Whole Foods’ was doing very well until this year, as seen below (WFM Gross Profit Margin (TTM)).

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).

Whole Foods Market Inc. is known as America’s healthiest grocery store. The company has been recognized as “Most Admired 2015 Companies” and “Top 100 Companies to Work For” by Fortune for eighteen years, stating, “The supermarket chain has redefined grocery shopping in the U.S”. The establishment has been also been ranked at number 3 on the list of America’s most reputable companies in the retail industry. The recognitions and awards represent the decades of passion and dedication of the Whole Foods Market’s

Whole Foods was founded in 1990 with a mission to offer good, wholesome food with an emphasis on natural and organic food. Through a series of acquisitions and expansions Whole Foods is a major grocery store representing organic products in the United States, Canada and the U.K. It is consistently ranked in the top 100 best companies to work for and the top 100 best Corporate Citizens.

Whole Foods Market, INC (ticker: WFM) one of the main leaders in supermarket/grocery industry. The company opened its first store in 1980 in Austin, Texas and it was among few supermarkets that were providing natural products. (1) Whole Foods Market was the first store to emphasis on organic food with a clear mission to be a provider of products with the highest quality. Whole Foods started expanding into different states across United States by mergers and acquisitions. Their first international expansion was into Canada in 2002, followed by and acquisition of seven Fresh & Wild stores in United Kingdom in 2004 which was the largest chain of organic grocery stores. (2) In order to lock their strong presence Whole Foods needed to make sure that their mission is heard and that they are faithful to their values. They are known for the highest quality products, before a product is available for purchase in stores it first goes through multiple steps of quality control and only when the requirements are met, the product makes it way to shelves. In order to satisfy organic standard, products need USDA approval, which prohibits the use of genetically modified organisms, pesticides, use of antibiotics or growth hormones in livestock. (3) Whole Foods is an environmentally sustainable, an example would be that they encourage their shoppers to either reuse shopping bags or they provide paper bags that are recyclable, they also donate good amount of money for environmental

Whole Foods Market is an American based natural and organic supermarket that is also located in the United Kingdom, and Canada the company has 469 stores in total. Whole Foods also employees over 87,000 team members and they are ranked as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in America by Fortune magazine. Whole Foods, 2017 states, “Our team members are part of the local community and they are passionate about supporting the local causes

For my individual assignment, I chose the company Whole Foods Market (WFM) which deals in selling products that are organic and fresh to its customers. WFM was founded by John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, owners of Safer Way Natural Foods, and Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, owners of Clarksville Natural Grocery in Austin, Texas where the original store opened in 1980 and consisted of a staff of only 19 people. WFM was founded because those four local businesspeople decided the natural foods industry was ready for a supermarket format and at that time there were less than half a dozen natural food supermarkets in the United States (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company-info/whole-foods-market-history). For the rest of this paper, I will be going more in depth about the company’s history and background, why I chose this company, the organization’s environment, mission, culture, and if the company will change or needs to change.

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.