| مستخلص: |
This article focuses on the Whole Foods Market, a grocery store that sells organic, natural and specialty food, founded by John Mackey. The nation's largest retailer of natural and organic foods, Whole Foods got its start in 1978 when John Mackey, then 25 years old, a fresh dropout from a succession of three Texas colleges, borrowed $45,000 from friends and family to open a health-food store-cum-restaurant in Austin, Tex.. Just about every food has a story behind it at this small but remarkably profitable chain, known for luminous, loving displays of succulent and savory foodstuffs and prices so obscenely high they prompt gasps of disbelief. Now Mackey, 51 and still Whole Foods' chief executive, vows to more than double sales to $10 billion in five years. He hopes to pose a direct challenge to supermarkets by persuading customers to do all their shopping at Whole Foods instead of cherry-picking the goodies they can't buy at the big-name chains. Whole Foods thrives by presenting food as theater, playing up the pious organic angle even as it peddles tempting offerings of culinary excess.Beneath this booming business, however, Whole Foods still hews to its hippie, health-food roots. INSET: MORE ORGANIC THAN THOU. |