Whole Foods Case Study

Unit Five Whole Foods Market 2007 Case Study Analysis

Introduction Please do not forget to submit your completed paper to TWO places this week only - to the dropbox and to the Turnitin Program (See the separate Turnitin Announcement,;)

This paper is to conduct an in-debt analysis of Whole Foods Market. In this paper we will discuss the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and key issues faced by the company and how the company will implement the issues to strengthen them as a whole.

Synopsis (Background) of the Situation

Whole Foods is the world's leading retailer of natural and organic foods. They currently have one hundred ninety-three stores and was founded by John Mackey who opened "Safer Way" natural grocery store in 1978 In 1980 John was having little success so he joined forces with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to form Whole Foods Market (Pearce & Robinson, 2011 pg 28-1). Whole Foods also operates Allegro Coffee Company, Pigeon Cove (seafood processing), Produce Field Inspection Office and Select Fish.

In conducting a SWOT analysis for Whole Foods, one of their biggest strengths was the setup of their stores. Whole Foods depends on these different setups to meet the demands of the local community. They also try to insure every consumer get the best out of their entire experience. The employees are very educated on the products and help in every way they can. Whole Foods does not try to differentiate themselves by price but instead by their focus on quality and service (Pearce & Robinson, 2011 pg. 28-5). A weakness of the company is the fact that they are located in wealthy places where their target market live. Their consumers are usually very well educated which in-turn allows for high salaries so in this Whole Foods can all higher prices. The bad thing is though "there are a limited number of communities where forty percent of the residents have college degrees" (Pearce & Robinson, 2011 pg 28-9)

One of the opportunities of Whole foods would be the ability to promote products through sales. Larger grocery suppliers have more flexibility in their product offering allowing them to promote through sales. This has lead to more competition against Whole Foods. The treats against Whole Foods would include the scarce resources such as prime store locations, supply of organic foods, and the lower quantity of organic crops (Pearce & Robinson, 2011 pg 28-9).

Key Issues

Key issues regarding Whole Foods include the lower quantity of organic crops, the recognition that the higher the demand for organic food will affect their earnings and impact the business, and prime store locations and the supply of organic foods are potential scarce resources (Pearce & Robinson, 2011 pg. 28-8-9).

Define the Problem

In my opinion the biggest issue regarding Whole Foods is the increasing demand as other grocery supply chains enter the market of organic foods. As other conventional supermarkets increase their natural and organic product offerings the demand for the product could reach its limit (Pearce & Robinson, 2011 pg. 28-9). This could result in less supplies and a lower quality of the product sold by Whole Foods.

Alternative