Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market, Inc.

Headquarters in Downtown Austin
Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: WFM S&P 500 component
Industry	Grocery store Health food store
Founded	September 20, 1980; 36 years ago (1980-09-20) in Austin, Texas
Founder	John Mackey
Headquarters	Austin, Texas, United States
Number of locations	431 (September 2016)
Key people	John B. Elstrott (Chairman) John Mackey (CEO) Jason Buechel (CIO)
Revenue	US$ 12.9 billion (2013) US$ 11.7 billion (2012)
Operating income	US$ 883.0 million (2013) US$ 744.0 million (2012)
Net income	US$ 551.0 million (2013) US$ 466.0 million (2012)
Total assets	US$ 5.5 billion (2013) US$ 5.3 billion (2012)
Total equity	US$ 3.9 billion (2013) US$ 3.8 billion (2012)
Number of employees	91,000
Website	www.wholefoodsmarket.com

365 by Whole Foods Market

Founded	June 2015; 1 year ago (2015-06)
Number of locations	3 (September 2016)
Website	www.365bywfm.com

Whole Foods Market Inc. is an American supermarket chain exclusively featuring foods without artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, sweeteners, and hydrogenated fats. It is the United States' first certified organic grocer, which means it ensures, to National Organic Program standards, organic integrity of the heterogeneous products from the time they reach stores until they are placed in a shopping cart. It opened on September 20, 1980, in Austin, Texas, its current headquarters. As of September 2015, it has 91,000 employees and 431 supermarkets in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and has its main produce procurement office in Watsonville, California.

As of 2015^[update], founder John Mackey and Walter Robb were co-CEOs of the publicly traded company, with John Elstrott as chairman. In November 2016, the company announced that Walter Robb would be stepping down as co-CEO at the end of year and would remain with the company as a director. It became a Fortune 500 company in March 2005 and is the 30th largest retailer in the U.S., based on 2014 revenue.

In 1978, Mackey and Renee Lawson borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open a small natural foods store called SaferWay in Austin, (the name being a spoof of Safeway). When the two were evicted from their apartment for storing food products in it, they decided to live at the store. Because it was zoned for commercial use, there was no shower stall, so they bathed using a water hose attached to their dishwasher.

Two years later, John Mackey and Renee Lawson partnered with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to merge SaferWay with the latter's Clarksville Natural Grocery, resulting in the opening of the original Whole Foods Market. At 10,500 square feet (980 m²) and with a staff of 19, the store was quite large in comparison to the standard health food store of the time.