Whole Foods Market, Inc. has always 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 (Lee & Linowes, 2009). The Whole Foods Market (WFM) mission is “Whole Food, Whole People, and Whole Planet.” This mission is made up of seven core values: selling the highest quality natural and organic products available; satisfying and delighting customers; supporting team member happiness and excellence; creating wealth through profits and growth; caring about the communities and the environment; creating ongoing win-win partnerships with suppliers; and promoting the health of their stakeholders through healthy eating education (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland 2012).
The strengths of Whole Foods Market are that it’s the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic foods, and America’s first national “Certified Organic” grocer. They are the tenth largest food retailer, and have been named by Fortune magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in the U.S. for 15 consecutive years.
Whole Foods Market weaknesses are that their products have higher prices than regular grocery stores. It will be beneficial to them to diversify more internationally, due to 97% of their sales are here in the United States. Another concern is the number of recalls from contamination of several of the products they sold. During November 2010, a Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas recalled seven types of cheddar cheese over the possible risk of E. coli or listeria contamination. In 2009, Whole Foods Carob Energee Nuggets was recalled by the company for possible Salmonella contamination, they also recalled some shell Dry Roasted and Salted Pistachios due to the potential salmonella contamination. These recalls have affected Whole Foods’ brand image.
Even with those weaknesses, the opportunity at Whole Foods is showing it’s a growing...