Whole Foods/Whole Market

"WHOLE FOODS, WHOLE PEPOPLE, WHOLE PLANET"

By: Malinda Flores

MGMT 450

Malinda Flores

Case Analysis #1 September 29, 2007

MGMT 450

"Whole Foods Market in 2006: Mission,

Core and Strategy"

John Mackey is the founder and CEO of Whole Food's Market, world's largest retail chain of natural and organic foods supermarket. Mr. Mackey has been referred to as the Bill Gates of organic food. Whole Food's stated mission is "to promote vitality and well-being for all individuals by offering the highest quality, least processed, most flavorful natural and naturally preserved foods available". The motto is "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet". Whole foods means the company strives to offer the highest quality, least processed, high variety, and most nutritious foods. Whole people means the company employs people who are pleasing and motivated to help the store become a valuable element of the community. Whole planet means the company supports sustainable agriculture and protecting the environment-therefore, as one example, they support organic farming. The disadvantage of this motto is the conditional attachment of high cost that comes with high quality. Whole Food's storyline revolves around empowerment, autonomy, teamwork, and high profitability.

When you enter into a Whole Foods supermarket you are met with an eager staff willing to answer questions, you will find information sheets within the store on their products, gleaming vegetables, fresh bread, and many more services that are not likely in a general supermarket. Whole Foods hopes to address the growing concern of the population which is the purity and safety of food.

The stakeholders in Whole Foods are the employees, customers, John Mackey, vendors, shareholders, management teams, and the community. Whole Foods is viewed as a social system. This explains that they use a specific combination of beneficial activities that support and contribute their time, money, and other resources to the community. You can witness this treatment inside of the market and outside of the market. Whole Foods is known for being involved in community food banks, paying their employees for community service, and involving themselves in many other community activities.

Its competitive edge is based on its strategy which I believe to be differentiation, high quality, and great service. They expect that customer's will pay the high price for the quality they receive and the options that they are offered. Each store is an independent profit center with its self managed teams. They urge employees to think of themselves as team members and promote participation and decision making. There are many incentives to keep employees motivated and happy to work for the company. Each store has its own team. Each team has its own leaders and their own goals. Each team has the ability to retrieve financial information about any of the other locations worldwide. Each team has control over their efficiency. A quote from John Mackey, "We have lots of self-examination going on. Peer pressure enlists loyalty in ways that bureaucracy doesn't". He believes that he is working towards positive improvements that will create an environment in which real change can be achieved.

I found it interesting to find that not only are Wild Oats, Kroger, and Wal-Mart considered their competitors, but so are the other Whole Food's locations. Kroger has experimented with offering organic products named "Fresh Fare". Wild Oats Markets is ranked second behind Whole Foods in the organic products market. In 2005 sales revenues for supermarket items were highest for Wal-Mart and Kroger than Whole Foods, but both do have sections of organic products in several of their locations. Some may view that Wal-Mart and Kroger don't carry enough of the organic produce line to be considered competitors, but they are the closest of any to be compared. The concern is whether or not the trend is growing and the need is growing for organic food products and how much to invest in those products. An example in the book explains getting organic tomatoes from Chile takes a lot of fossil burning fuel to get the item to the location when you can get tomatoes from a nearby location and they will