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food organic natural sustainable agriculture groceries




  • Whole Foods is the world’s #1

  • Whole Foods is the world’s #1 natural food chain. Their stores emphasize perishable products, which account for about two-thirds of sales. Whole Foods Market offers more than 2,300 items in four lines of private-label products. Whole Foods sells very high quality natural and organic products. According to the Whole Foods mission statement: “Whole Foods Market's vision of a sustainable future means our children and grandchildren will be living in a world that values human creativity, diversity, and individual choice. Businesses will harness human and material resources without devaluing the integrity of the individual or the planet's ecosystems. Companies, governments, and institutions will be held accountable for their actions.” This would be a social responsible and environmentally conscious place to shop. My family would love to shop here more often due to the high quality food and the message that the company encourages. However the prices can sometimes make it difficult. I support all of their programs and relations with small overseas business but sometimes the cost of their food products is to high for many to spend on a regular basis. In this way, for some people, shopping at Whole Foods is a rare treat. Lower pricing would make the company more competitive to the general public and promote their mission and healthy lifestyle.
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  • Whole Foods incentives for healthier employees

  • This is an interesting way to implement the concept of corporate social responsibility. Conceptually, Whole Food's policy tries to create a win win situation for both the company and the community, in this case, their employees. By offering nominal discounts to their employees to purchase their products, Whole Foods is increasing their sales and volume, decreasing waste (since the majority of their products are perishable and require high turnover), and decreasing their healthcare expenses (by having healthier employees). This should theoretically increase shareholder value. The win for the community is that the employees have a way reduce their grocery bills by an extra 10% by meeting certain health metrics. If an average family spends approx. $12,000 a year (according to an article in Refund Cents), that savings can add up to $1,200 a year. Not to mention, the employee's health benefits from maintaining low cholesterol, BMI, etc. That being said, in reality, it may be more of a political statement by WF, because it is hard to determine whether this will have an impact on their profits, or whether it will lead to healthier employees. The metrics cited in their policy are just surrogate markers for overall health, and not necessarily predictive of higher quality of life or lower healthcare expenditures.



  • Kudos Whole Foods

  • Thanks for sharing that article. I feel this is the most meaningful way for companies to move forward in order to encourage individual responsibility whilst providing good incentives
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