Whole Foods Market Swot Analysis

INDUSTRY EVOLUTION

Whole Foods Market Inc. is a service provider in the grocery industry, which report in the US economy under the North American Industry Classification System NAICS 42441, General-line groceries merchants wholesalers, by the time the company started operations in 1980 supermarkets had a history of 51 years. Supermarkets unlike other type of retail is considered truly American in origin, self service grocery stores are traced back to 1912 in Memphis Tennessee, and it was in 1930 when Michael Cullen opened the first store of the King Kullen supermarket chain, it was around that time after the big depression that the independent stores which at that time only offered dry groceries started to transition to the supermarket model, including groceries, produce, and

The supermarkets as we know them today were in the beginning regional and local chains rolling out stores in 1950, exploiting trends and a mixture of acquisition and development of new stores. By 1970 the saturation and recession had supermarkets turn to new formats to increase profit, this is how the club stores were introduced (Price Club 76, Costco 83, Sam’s 83). This is also when Whole Foods Market came in to the picture in 1980 as a natural food store.

Industry Disruption

Whole Food Market was an early entrant in the “Extreme Value” format grocery industry segment offering premium organic all natural brands of food for health, and environment conscious customers. The market niche they serve is the upscale clientele, whose disposable income has increased in recent years, and is expected to continue growing. These customers are interested in creating value thru their purchasing decisions with companies who have in place Environmental policies even that the benefit of this is indirect to the customer it is significant to change consumer