Face value | A Wal-Mart for the granola crowd | Economist.com
Good star for Purity Foods to be hitched to.
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John Mackey sees no limit to the appetite for natural foods
NO ONE admits to being more surprised by the runaway success of Whole Foods Market than its boss. “In all my profound wisdom I decreed a maximum of 100 stores, and thought that would saturate the United States,” recalls John Mackey of the time when his company went public in 1992. That in itself was quite a milestone for a grocery retailer that he began in 1978 in a garage in Austin, Texas, when he was living in a vegetarian co-op. At first, hippies and college students were his main customers. But now, with over 170 stores feeding America's organic-food-addicted middle class, Whole Foods Market has become firmly established as the world's largest natural-foods chain.
Nor is there any sign of the firm's rapid growth coming to an end. Its sales rose by 23% to $3.9 billion in the latest financial year. Mr Mackey is now expanding the firm abroad, initially with a move to London. As for the success of this, a chastened Mr Mackey says, “we actually don't have the least bit of doubt”.
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