Whole Food

January 16, 2012

BUS 599

Firstly will be the discussion of the trends in retailing of organic foods and the impact of these trends on Whole Foods Market. There are a lot of trends that are impacting whole foods. Some of the trends that are impacting Whole foods are the canning come back. The popularity of the canning come back, is the storage of foods for both economy and health. Also having more and more men in aprons is having an impact. More men are staying home and cooking instead of spending money at fast food restaurant. Another impact is local farming. People care about the hand tended farming. People also tired of what they can eat. On a more technological trend, more people are gaining interest in smart phone apps that have recipes. Unemployment (and underemployment) has motivated many people to eat in more often. It will be interesting to see if The Food Channel’s prediction about more men cooking actually pans out. They will have to keep an eye on male attendance at their store cooking classes this year. Putting up food for the winter has always been a trend. Salary cuts have motivated people to work at saving money on food has even more impact now that the economy is not as well. People still clip coupons out of newspapers and magazines. For the most part smart phones have eliminated the need to do so for the tech savvy. Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver also had an impact by accelerating the trend toward serving restaurant quality food in schools.

Evaluate the competitive environment of the firm: Apply Porter’s model and analyze each factor relative to the company. The five forces in Porter’s Model of Competition are threats of new entrants, rivalry among competing firms, and threat of substitute products, bargaining power of buyers, and bargaining power of suppliers. Each of the forces of Porter’s model is directly related to the Whole Foods Market.

Organic foods are extremely popular so there is always a threat of new entrants into...