University of Chicago

Whole Foods Marketing Strategy

The purpose of our project will be to formulate a marketing strategy for Whole Foods grocery stores. Whole Foods has been very successful in the organic grocery store market, becoming the dominant player in this niche category. However, it is unclear how their business should evolve in the future. Our marketing strategy will assess the current business conditions under which Whole Foods is operating and will examine how Whole Foods can best position itself for future success.
Our analysis will focus on the following three issues for Whole Foods moving forward: 1) where does Whole Foods (or more generally the organic grocery store market) currently stand within its product life cycle, 2) how might Whole Foods expand geographically in the future, and 3) should Whole Foods alter its product mix in order to attract more mainstream customers.
The first issue will be addressed by examining growth trends within the organic grocery store industry and also determining organic grocery's share of the overall grocery store market over time. We intend to utilize conjoint analysis in order to address the second and third issues. We will assess how Whole Foods customers compare with customers of traditional grocery stores (i.e. Jewel). Using the results of the conjoint analysis, we will be able to see whether Whole Foods is missing any opportunities by focusing largely on urban areas and limiting their presence in suburban and rural areas. In addition, we will determine whether Whole Foods can safely grow their business by offering select mainstream products in addition to their traditional organic offerings.