"CSMonitor" declare : Organic food is more popular than ever, so why is Whole Foods struggling?

—Whole Foods may have led the charge on organic food, but it's in danger of being left behind by the movement it helped create. According to the Seattle Times, Costco in 2015 became the biggest organic grocer, selling more than $4 billion of organic food each year, while Kroger's recently launched organic line also netted $1.2 billion in sales in 2014. The supermarket chain reported declining in sales for the sixth quarter in a row, experiencing 2.4 percent fall in sales compared to the first quarter, amidst an increasingly competitive organic food retail market. "Instead, it will close unprofitable stores and hold back on building more of its lower-priced 365 stores until it's more confident in the concept's long-term performance." As the Christian Science Monitor noted in 2016:The 365 chain of stores is designed for Millennials and budget shoppers.


as mentioned in Whole Foods' longtime dream — that organic foods would eventually appeal to everyone — has become its worst nightmare. But customers are abandoning the supermarket chain, as retailers like Kroger and Walmart ramp up their organic food offerings to meet growing demand. Kroger started expanding its private-label "Simple Truth" organic food brand several years ago, and now devotes multiple aisles in its store to organic and natural foods. Whole Foods pioneered the organic food movement in the US decades before it was popular, betting on the idea that people would pay a premium for the label. The stores are cheaper to build than Whole Foods' traditional stores, so it has more flexibility in pricing.


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Whole Foods to shrink store count for first time since 2008

Though Whole Foods plans to open six stores during the current quarter, including two relocations, the company said Wednesday that it's shutting down nine. Shoppers push a cart past a Whole Foods Market Inc. store in Franklin, Tenn. in 2016. Whole Foods opened a store in Bedford last year and in Nashua in 2014. Whole Foods to shrink store count for first time since 2008Whole Foods Market Inc., facing its worst sales slump in more than a decade, is taking a step that would have been unthinkable in its highflying days: shrinking the size of the chain. The fact that organic fare has reached the likes of Kroger and Wal-Mart is a fantastic thing and a win for lower income Americans everywhere.




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collected by :John Miller