One More Reason to Love Whole Foods December 14, 2006

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Whole Foods Founder John Mackey

Every time I travel anywhere, I make it a point before I leave home to MapQuest directions to the nearest Whole Foods to wherever I'm going. I see their stores as a vegan high-heaven—their wide variety of vegan meats, cheeses, and other harder-to-find delicacies make them my favorite grocery store chain in the entire world. Aside from offering wonderful food for vegans, the company is also a role model for others in its industry when it comes to improving animal welfare. They have a policy against selling products tested on animals, and they have banned the sale of live lobsters and crabs as well as foie gras in all 189 of their stores. (If only they'd open up a store here in Norfolk ...)

As if that all weren't enough, there's more: Whole Foods founder (and longtime vegan) John Mackey recently announced that he has decided to cut his salary to $1 because he is more interested in making the world a better place than in making lots of money. Here's the story from Charleston's Post and Courier:

Q: How big a threat is Wal-Mart?

A: It never pays to underestimate Wal-Mart or any competitor. So far, we haven't seen much impact from Wal-Mart, where we've gone head to head against one of their Supercenters that has a lot of organic. It hasn't affected us that much. There isn't a team of people in Austin trying to figure out what to do. We have this empowered, decentralized culture, and a high percentage of them are trying to figure out how to make their stores better, how to improve the customer experience.

Q: How much autonomy do individual stores have and why?

A: Competition is on a local basis. And this is a reason to be decentralized. The basic philosophy is, we have a culture of empowerment. If it's a globally sourced product, like private-label, then we'll want team members to sell that in the store. We also allow each store to customize its product mix. If you go to the Austin store, there will be all kinds of small local producers and vendors - from salsas to tofu to tabbouleh to hummus, to hundreds and maybe thousands of products that are unique to that store. There'll be local tomatoes that we might sell in an Austin market, and certainly not in Chicago. It's the team leaders making those decisions.

We're being more aggressive on price. If (a competitor carries) the exact same product, then we're going to sell it at a matching or lower price. Those are decisions being made locally. We've got 189 stores. They're all faced with their own unique competitive environments. It's not necessary for me to know everything that's going on everywhere. I could find out, if there's a reason.

Q: Why are you cutting your salary to $1?

A: It's hard for me to explain this in ways that people will understand. I've always followed my own heart, and this is what my heart is telling me is the appropriate thing to do right now. I have enough money, and the deeper motivations for me are to do service and try to do good in the world. It may not make sense for other people who don't have the same inner experiences that I'm having. I'm not advocating other CEOs to do it. I don't think of myself as particularly special or noble for doing it. It's just what I want to do.

(Read more ...)

Check WholeFoodsMarket.com for a list of locations. If you aren't lucky enough to have one in your town, well, maybe it's time for a roadtrip!

-Noah

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