Whole Foods Social Responsibility

I will be comparing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Social responsibility means that a company invests in communities, protects the environment, pays their taxes, provides equal treatment, provides adequate health care, etc. CSR is an act of maturity, where companies feel obligated to give back to those who assisted them in their success. A company needs both the employees and customers to be satisfied. Hence, companies feel obligated to give back to their community; a practice of appreciation and sympathy. I will begin with talking about the background of each company, followed by the employees, investors, customers, and environment.

Many believe that business entities should have an ethical duty to be socially responsible, to work towards increasing its positive effects on society while decreasing its negative effects. Many organizations look for opportunities to be socially responsible while also creating shareholder wealth.

In the students interpretation Whole Foods Market would be located at the position of ethical responsibility on the pyramid of Carroll’s global corporate social responsibility. Programs are set up to make sure the stakeholders interest impact business by ways of the consumer perception and the investor confidence. To stay in business the leaders address the interest and demands of the stakeholders. Whole Food Market’s corporate social responsibility to the people who work for them is compensation, motivation and morale based on the corporate image. Furthermore the investors are regarded as important because of their involvement in the growth of the business and financial gain. Additionally significance is placed on the customers therefore

I would say that Whole Foods would be located at the Philanthropic Responsibility level which is the high level because of Mackey's zero sum game or at the top of the pyramid following every criterion. Mackey stated that what’s needed for a company is to adopted social justice in which everyone gets an equal slice of the pie. This avoids the idea that one individual getting the larger piece and everyone else getting the smaller which cause lower morale in employees. Cooperate social responsibility is very essential in every enterprise.

I located Whole Foods at the Philanthropic Responsibility level of the pyramid. John Mackey stated that “If one stakeholder is winning, someone else must be losing. It comes from sports, where there is one winner and lots of losers, and this idea of a fixed pie, where if someone is getting a bigger piece, someone else has to be getting a smaller piece, and what’s needed for social justice is to make sure people get equal pieces. But a conscious business recognizes that you can have an expanding pie, and potentially everyone can get a larger piece.” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013)

The Whole Kids Foundation is an organization that is a branch of Whole Foods Market. They are a national company that help children become aware of healthy lifestyles. Every single Whole Foods store does something to help benefit the organization and their community.They do things such as plant gardens in schools, teach nutrition classes, talk about composting, and so much more. They have 8,767 partnered schools in three different countries, including the U.S., Canada, and the UK.

They does this by rescuing and redeploying surplus fresh food, constructing community volume in food skills and nutrition and supporting for an end to food insecurity. (http://secondbite.org/)

YUM's published position on corporate social responsibility is that they are all for it and very good at it. Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine has Yum rated in the top 100 Best Corporate Citizens in America in 2017 (WORLD WITH MORE, n.d., p. 1). Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine has Yum as a leader in environment; climate change; human rights; philanthropy; employee relations; finance; and governance, with environment and employee relations weighted the highest. The magazine also quotes the Senior Vice President of saying that they are proud of their corporate social responsibility progress in the past 11 years (Business Wire, 2009, p. 2). In the philanthropy department, Yum has a Harvest Food donation program where they donate

Companies that invest in corporate social responsibility initiatives are increase their profits. On the other hand, companies that think of ethics as cost are in danger of not surviving long term. Successful companies incorporate code of ethics and provide ethics training. In addition, they create an open atmosphere, perform internal audits, preserver industry integrity, and instill accountability for decisions. Your example regarding Whole Foods Market would be social responsibility initiative that supports healthy eating and provide support for local farms. This initiative will increase profits by investing and giving back to communities where stores are located. A good rule of thumb is that social responsibility impacts all stakeholders.

The Whole Foods Market chain was the first retailer in the United States offering products to its customers that are natural (grown without being treated with growth hormones or antibiotics) and ’certified organic’. The product of Whole Foods are organic, natural and gourmet foods, taking into account the environment as an important factor, and making of the earth the first priority. they’re not a company selling cheap products but they’re a company selling quality and health to their customers. They’re not giving importance to businnes, but to quality and satisfy their customers. Whole foods is not only taking care of their customers but also of the environment

Either about Corporate Philanthropy or Corporate Ethicality, the thing is even truer in a food retailing context. Food retailers like Sainsbury 's use this CSR activity by communicating about the efforts they do in terms of farmers and suppliers protection, the local and regional support, the promotion of biological or ethical products...

The companies that work closely with Whole Foods Market are Fair Trade USA, Rainforest Alliance, The Institute for Marketecology Social (IMO) & Fair Trade Certification, and Fair Trade International. These are non-profit organizations along with Whole Foods Market who care about social responsibility started a program called Fair for Life which is based on the latest recommendations by setting social

Social responsibility makes a company more competitive and reduces the risk of sudden damage to the company’s reputation and sales.

Whole Foods Market is a supermarket chain launched in 1980 and is the first certified organic grocer in the United States. They are a growing chain with 462 locations all around the world as of 2016 with more than 90,000 employees. Whole Foods underpinning culture is to sell the highest quality of organic products to meet the needs of every customers, while supporting their team members value.

Another way, that Whole Foods displays social marketing is by using cause-related marketing. Cause-related marketing is the cooperative efforts of a for- profit firm and a nonprofit organization for mutual benefit. Some of the efforts are: