In 1978, twenty-five year old college dropout John Mackey and twenty-one year old Rene Lawson Hardy, borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open the doors of a small natural foods store called SaferWay in Austin, Texas (the name being a spoof of Safeway, which operated stores under their own name in Austin at that time). When the couple got booted out of their apartment for storing food products there, they decided to simply live at the store. Since it was zoned commercial, there was no shower stall. Instead, they bathed in the Hobart dishwasher, which had an attached water hose. Two years later, John and Rene partnered with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to merge SaferWay with their Clarksville Natural Grocery, resulting in the opening of the original Whole Foods Market on September 20, 1980. At 10,500 square feet and a staff of 19, this store was quite large in comparison to the standard health food store of the time. Less than a year later, on Memorial Day in 1981, the worst flood in 70 years devastated the city of Austin. Caught in the flood waters, the store's inventory was wiped out and most of the equipment was damaged. The losses were approximately $400,000 and Whole Foods Market had no insurance. Customers and neighbors voluntarily joined the staff to repair and clean up the damage. Creditors, vendors and investors all provided breathing room for the store to get back on its feet and it re-opened only 28 days after the flood. Beginning in 1984, Whole Foods Market began its expansion out of Austin, first to Houston and Dallas and then into New Orleans with the purchase of Whole Food Company in 1988. In 1989, we expanded to the West Coast with a store in Palo Alto, California. While continuing to open new stores from the ground up, we fueled rapid growth by acquiring other natural foods chains throughout the 90's: Wellspring Grocery of North Carolina, Bread & Circus of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Mrs. Gooch's Natural Foods Markets of Los Angeles, Bread of Life of Northern California, Fresh Fields Markets on the East Coast and in the Midwest, Florida Bread of Life stores, Detroit area Merchant of Vino stores, and Nature's Heartland of Boston. Whole Foods Market started our third decade with additional acquisitions of Food for Thought in Northern California and Harry's Farmers Market stores in Atlanta. In 2001, Whole Foods moved into Manhattan, generating a good deal of interest from the media and financial industries. 2002 saw an expansion into Canada and in 2004, Whole Foods Market entered the United Kingdom with the acquisition of seven Fresh & Wild stores.
Whole Foods Market's Local Producer Loan Program (LPLP) provides up to $10 million in low-interest loans to small, local producers. Loans range from $1,000 to $100,000 and can be for things like purchasing more animals, investing in new equipment or converting to organic production. minimize the fees, interest rates and paperwork that can often get in the way of a small local farm or business taking the next step to expand its operations. Whole Foods Market believes that sustainable seafood comes from responsibly managed fish farms and marine fisheries that maintain healthy fish populations and ecosystem Provide informed consumer choice with regard to genetically engineered ingredients (also known as GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms). We do this through our support of organic agriculture along with our commitment to source our 365 Everyday Value and Whole Foods Market brand products to avoid GMOs. When developing WFM brand products, they work with manufacturers to source non-genetically engineered ingredients. If those ingredients are not commercially available, they encourage producers to work to meet this goal. Beginning in July 2009, WFM established a partnership with the Non-GMO Project to verify and label the store brand food products using the nation’s first authoritative standard.
The P/E ratio ( price-to-earnings ratio ) of a stock (also called its "P/E", or simply "multiple") is a measure of the price paid for a share relative to the annual net income or profit earned by the firm per share. [2] The P/E ratio can therefore alternatively be calculated by dividing the company's market capitalization by its total annual earnings. The price to earnings ratio (PE Ratio) is the measure of the share price relative to the annual net income earned by the firm per share. PE ratio shows current investor demand for a company share. A high PE ratio generally indicates increased demand because investors anticipate earnings growth in the future. The PE ratio has units of years, which can be interpreted as the number of years of earnings to pay back purchase price. PE ratio is often referred to as the "multiple" because it demonstrates how much an investor is willing to pay for one dollar of earnings. PE Ratios are sometimes calculated using estimations of next year's earnings per share in the denominator. When this happens, it is usually noted. Market Capitalization (Market Cap) is a measurement of business value based on share price and number of shares outstanding. It generally represents the market's view of a company's stock value and is a determining factor in stock valuation.
Whole Foods Market Inc. Whole Foods Market Inc. Latest from The Business Journals Centennial Lakes lands Jason's Deli Bullish on Post Oak Silicon Valley landlords ready to close Borders Books & Music stores and find new tenants Follow this company is taking its place among the country’s heavy hitters in retail, according to a recent analysis by the Washington, D.C.-based National Retail Federation National Retail Federation Latest from The Business Journals Report: Parents to spend 4 on school shopping Report: Parents to spend 4 on school shopping Report: Parents to spend 4 on school shopping Follow this company . NRF released its "2011 Top 100 Retailers," which ranks businesses according to sales. Austin-based natural grocer (Nasdaq: WFM) came in at No. 38 with $8.7 billion in sales last year, up 11.9 percent from the previous year. The company also recently distributed a $17.6 million dividend .