All About Them
This is an American multinational supermarket called Whole Foods Market, Inc. The headquarters is located in Austin, Texas, they sell products that contain no artificial colors, flavors, or hydrogenated fats. They are the largest American chain of supermarkets, their specialization is natural and organic food, they operated stores in various locations from the United States to Canada and the United Kingdom, they opened 500 stores. The Whole Foods Market revived a Certified Organic from the USDA for making the chain popular for organic selections. Today’s topic- Who owns Whole Foods Market?
In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market. They are the 5th largest public food retailer, they are also the 10th largest retailer overall in the sales ranking during 2014. They have a mission of promoting the vitality and well-being of all the customers. They want to supply the highest quality food available, they will also make sure they sell organic and natural products and the team is creating wealth for supporting people locally and internationally as well as maintaining the business growth.
History
It all started in 1980, John Mackey and Renee Lawson started vegetarian natural food stores in Austin, Texas, they named the stores, SaferWay by borrowing $45,000 from friends and family. They used to store food in their apartment however they were evicted and so both of them decided to live at the store. After two years, they partnered with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, this was to merge SaferWay with Clarkville Natural Grocery, later on, Whole Foods Market was opened, products such as meat were included.
On 25th May 1981, during Memorial Day, Austin faced a tragic event of a flood, the entire inventory of Whole Foods and most of the equipment was damaged. The loss was $40,000 and the company didn’t have insurance. The customers, neighbors, and staff help the supermarket with repairing the damage, cleaning up the store and it was opened after twenty-eight days.
Expansion and Acquisition
In 1984, Whole Foods Market began their expansion outside Austin, their first location was in Houston and Dallas, after four years the company opened the next stores in New Orleans. In 1989, they expanded the organization to California, Palo Alto. Their stock was launched in January. While they making their expansion there was a huge growth due to the acquisition of natural food chains in the 1990s for example:
- Wellspring Grocery of North Carolina
- Bread & Circus of Massachusetts and Rhode Island
- Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Foods Markets of Los Angeles
- Bread of Life of Northern California
- Fresh Fields Markets in East Coast and Midwest
- Florida Bread of Life stores
- Detroit-area Merchant of Vino stores
- Nature’s Heartland of Boston
In the year 1997, the organization bought Allegro Coffee Company, they opened their 100th store in Torrance, California. Whole Foods Markets made additional acquisitions starting with Natural Abilities in the year 2000, doing business known as Food for Thought in Northern California. In 2001, they moved Whole Foods to Manhattan, and during the same Ken Meyer became the president in the South region, the company acquired Harry’s Farmers Market assets along with three stores in Atlanta.
After one year, the expansion continued throughout North America and they opened the store outside the United States, in Toronto, Ontario. Currently, they operate in seven stores in locations from Camden Town, Clapham Junction, Kensington, Piccadilly Circus, Richmond, Stoke Newington, and Fulham. Whole Foods closed its Giffnock and Cheltenham by the end of November 2017.
What is Whole Foods Market’s marketing strategy?
The marketing mix of Whole Foods was to make connections and have engagement with the consumers. Especially the kind of customers who want to shop in a supermarket that offers organic products with no fat and artificial colors. This element of the marketing mix is the business strategies and correspondent activities, they are the implementation of the marketing plan of Whole Foods Market. Their strategy is to have engagement with the customers. It is also the top organic supermarket chain in the United States.
Whole Foods Market’s Products
Whole Foods Market’s choice of products comes in varieties. The definition of this element is the organization offering the customers the kind of goods that will satisfy their needs and wants. Whole Foods Market has three product lines which are 365 Everyday Value, Whole Foods Market Brand, and Engine 2 Plant-Strong. 365 Everyday Value is a product line that offers price-conscious buyers, and Whole Foods Market Brand includes premium products and the organization will make sure their goods are Engine 2 Plant-Strong. are vegetarian and diet preferences choices.
They are using the company label to make sure the products come from suppliers’ certification of the Whole Trade Guarantee to make the food sustainable and fair labor practices. In this element of the marketing mix, they are satisfying the customers with the preferences and the buyers who have concerns about the price-conscious.
Whole Foods Market’s Place
The company is continuing to make expansion such as adding more locations for distributing the aspects of the marketing mix that defines the store that provides organic foods and dietary needs. In this element of the marketing mix, there are two places for distribution, the first is called Whole Foods Market stores. And the second distribution is called Whole Foods Market Online store.
The main distribution for the products is Whole Foods Market stores. The company also has a Whole Foods Market Online store for online purchases and delivery services. Whole Foods Market’s capitalization is the popularity of the brand for the customers to be attracted to and for the number of the stores to be increased around the world. The stores are usually located in an area within a twenty-minute drive, a huge population of college students lives in the area.
Whole Foods Market’s Promotions
This element of the marketing mix involves a variety of promotion activities and strategies, it depends on the food industry and the customers making purchases in every season. The element also involves organization communicating and engaging with the customers. Whole Foods Markets has three activities for their promotion, advertising, public relations, and sales promotion.
They only promote regional advertisement however the organization also promotes national advertising campaigns for example “Values Matter” campaign, which was created for giving awareness to the public on health. As for public relations, it’s also regional, they promote programs with communities. Lastly, for sales promotion, the company offers discounts. This element of the marketing mix, it talks about Whole Foods Market building their brand image
Whole Foods Market’s Pricing Strategy
For this element of the marketing mix, they use a premium pricing strategy. There are high prices in some products in comparison with other supermarkets such as Walmart. The customers get assurance that even though the prices are high, the quality of products is higher than the competitors to motivate the customers to purchase the goods. The pricing strategy of Whole Foods Market is the alignment of prices with the strategy of board differentiation.
Who is their target market?
The first category of target customers of Whole Foods Market is the types of families and individuals who earn high incomes and have a healthy lifestyle. The kind of customers who have college degrees, who live in an upscale suburban or metropolitan area. The second category of target customers is wealthy people, who don’t require discount offers or coupons who don’t purchase goods at Walmart. These are the target customers that select expensive products at Whole Foods Market.
The target customers are usually young families, young college grads working at high tech organizations in the Bay Area, and retirees. Whole Foods are currently targeting a new kind of customer: millennials, college graduates who have liberal and progressive values and are conscious about saving money, travel around the world and don’t have any college debts, and spend money on expensive products. The company is planning to add new stores to target new customers.
Who owns Whole Foods?
Amazon
Amazon started the grocery business during the year 2017, by spending about $13 billion to purchase a supermarket that has been running for 40 years and is known for its organic goods at a high price. Since the grocery sector operates on a large scale, the purpose for acquiring Whole Foods was to make a multibillion-dollar investment while having digital grocery capabilities.
When the world started to face the covid-19 pandemic, there was a change in the food industry, specifically food delivery which is the main sector in Amazon. People around the world are being concerned about the supermarket ambitions and Amazon has started doing things in a different way such as the process of delivering food and making sure not to damage the products.
In conclusion, I would like to say an interesting fact about Whole Foods Market, they have a Guinness World record, they have the title for the most Parmigiano Reggiano wheels simultaneously cracked. They cracked 426 wheels in all the stores together from locations of the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. Whole Foods Market is the first one to set the record in the year 2008.