Kera JosephMichelle Badia DIaz

Alex Dunham Taylor HengesbachChristian Olanowski

GLOBAL EXPRESSION

WHOLE FOODS MARKET

We are here to provide a complete research study for Whole Foods Market in the East

Lansing area.ADV 342, Section 4

Appendices

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….3

Executive Summary ……………………………………………………………………4

Problem Definition.……………………………………………………………………..5

Situation Analysis ………………………………………………………………………7

Ethnographic Research………………………………………………………………...11

Focus Group Report ……………………………………………………………...…...16

Survey Research Report ……………………………………………………………….21

Creative Brief ………………………………………………………………………….25

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..26

References……………………………………………………………………………...27

Appendices……………………......................................................................................28

2

Introduction

Whole Foods Market is an all-natural and organic store that tries to maintain the

highest of quality for their customers. Whole Foods tries to bring the top locally grown

and sustainable produce to its stores to provide a healthy way of living. It was founded in

Austin, Texas in 1980 when four young local businessmen began to see the importance of

a whole foods market. Once they realized this they eventually opened up their first store,

which consisted of 19 employees. Soon Whole foods market started to expand all around

the world. Different mergers and acquisitions brought growth to the company.

Once their growth began to happen they were able to turn their whole foods market into

one of the largest and most well known stores in the U.S. With one soon arriving in the

East Lansing area it is important that Whole Foods focuses on their promoting and

marketing of their products. With a growing number of grocery stores increasing in the

area from west Lansing to Okemos, it is important they come up with a unique and

innovative way to pull in the targeted market; college students. College students are a

large part of the East Lansing area and being able to pull in this target market could

produce a major benefit for this company.

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Executive Summary

Whole Foods Market is an organic and all natural store that is coming to East Lansing,

MI in the New Year. There is a tremendous amount of students on college campuses that

are beginning to see the benefits of living and eating a more healthy, balanced diet that

can include all natural or organic foods. With this growing number of college students

and young professionals wanting to eat and live a healthy lifestyle, it is important that

Whole Foods Market begins to target this specific demographic. This market is the most

important one in the East Lansing area because they are going to be new consumers that

will be eventually going in to the work place and potentially being able to afford the cost

of organic and all natural foods. Most students have left their hometowns to go to college,

and they are starting to do grocery shopping at cooking on their own. If Whole Foods

wins over these target consumers, there is the potential to gain them as new customers

and have them continue to purchase their products.

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Problem Definition

The problem with Whole Foods Market is the cost of the their products and their

lack of advertising directed at the potential target market that is college students in the

East Lansing area. For students who are trying to stay healthy but not trying to spend a lot

of money, this becomes a major issue when trying to target students and young

professionals. Currently many students are trying to find healthy, yet cheap ways to eat,

and when it comes to organic and all-natural food prices this tends to be a major issue.

The problem Whole Foods Market currently faces is coming up with new strategies to

bring college students and young professionals to their stores. They need to begin to look

at the whole demographics of the East Lansing area and understand that they will need to

lower prices and come up with a more innovative marketing strategy for targeting these

potential people.

Through observations of Whole Foods major competitors like Meijer, Kroger,

Foods for Living, The Better Health Store and the opening of Fresh Thyme we hope we

can provide valuable insight to the store. It is imperative that we do this through

observation research, focus groups and surveys of the East Lansing and Lansing

residents.

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Problem Definition

There are a few issues that arose with Whole Foods that we noticed after

conducting and analyzing our research. The first major issue was the cost of the their

products and the lack of advertising directed at the potential target market; that is college

students in the East Lansing area. For students who are trying to stay healthy, but not

trying to spend a lot of money, this becomes a major issue when trying to target students

and young professionals. Currently many students are trying to find healthy, yet cheap

ways to eat, and when it comes to organic and all-natural food prices this tends to be a

major issue. The problem Whole Foods currently faces is coming up with new strategies

to bring college students and young professionals to their stores. They need to begin to

look at the whole demographics of the East Lansing area and understand that they will

need to lower prices or come up with a more innovative marketing strategy for targeting

these potential people.

Through observations of Whole Foods major competitors like Meijer, Kroger,

Foods for Living, The Better Health Store and the opening of Fresh Thyme we hope we

can provide valuable insight to the store. It is imperative that we do this through

observational research, focus groups and online surveys of the East Lansing and Lansing

residents.

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Situation Analysis

Whole Foods Market is considered an all-natural and organic shopping center that

provides exceptional products for people trying to live a natural, organic lifestyle.

Key Competitors

• Meijer

• Kroger

• Food for Living

• Better Health Store

Key Brand Category - Whole Food Markets’ key brand category is a health food store

that provides organic, all-natural foods to its consumers.

Existing Research

According to our existing research findings the main competitors for Whole

Foods Market in the East Lansing, MI area are Meijer, Kroger, Better Health Store and

Foods for Living. According to Daniel Jennings, “the major problem with the Whole

Foods Market is its competitors. The problem is that their competitors offer their

customers more products than just groceries. On the other hand, Whole Foods just offers

groceries, so sometimes people prefer to go to another place because they might need

different products which are not groceries” (Jennings, 2014). Furthermore, “one of their

greatest competitors, Kroger, placed their markets with gas stations” (Jennings, 2014).

This is a way to attract the public, while getting gas they can also shop for groceries.

Moreover, Whole Foods has had a nickname “Whole Paycheck”. Some people

named Whole foods with this name because they say every time they go shopping for

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groceries; they spend their entire month’s paycheck (MacColl, 2014). However, John

Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods stated, “some of their prices will be reduced, because

before they used to be the only place that had organic food, but now the market

competition is growing” (MacColl, 2014). Whole Foods will need to reduce their prices

in order to adapt to the reality of the marketplace and to be able to keep up with their

competition.

“Whole Foods biggest threat now seems to be Kroger’s, as well as Meijer. Kroger

expects they will be the top market for organic and healthy food within 2 years” (Lutz,

2014). “Kroger’s strategy is based on offering more specialty and organic food, which is

helping them to retrieve new customers” (Lutz, 2014). “Most supermarkets have been

losing sales because people want more specialty and healthy products. Young adults and

college people focus now on healthy eating rather than junk or prepared food” (Lutz,

2014).

Meijer’s is also another major competitor to Whole Foods Market. The Lansing

City Pulse stated that during the next year a “phoenix-based grocer, and Whole Foods

competitor, Meijer, have signed a lease to replace the Goodrich’s Shop Rite in the

Trowbridge plaza” (Balaskovitz, 2014). This Fresh Thyme store will be another major

competitor for Whole Foods Market, especially with two new student housing buildings

going up right next-door. Their main focus will be to target students and provide them

with locally grown fruit, vegetables and other foods rather than already prepared foods.

During the last few years, people have started to care more about healthy living,

than in other times. They want what is best for them and for their health. Now with all the

already local stores providing organic, all natural or locally grown food, Whole Foods

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will need to figure out what their target market will be and how to convince them to shop

at their store, rather than the competitors.

Strengths

• Variety of healthy all-natural and organic foods and products• Lunch and Dinner buffet bar that provides already prepared food for its

consumers.• Known for their high quality products• Grand variety of products (i.e. seafood, meat, grocery, etc.)

Weaknesses

• Only sells food products as opposed to a multitude of products (clothing, electronics, etc.) like other local stores: Walmart, Meijer, Kroger.

• Some of products are over-pricedOpportunities

• Sell more products like home products: toiletry, Kitchen products, cleaning products.

• Potential to reach a large number of people: students, who are beginning to look for healthy foods.

• High potential of growth by expanding their business all over the world and having more stores

Threats

• The downfall of the American Economy may prevent people from buying these products.

• Many grocery stores are beginning to sell their own brands of all natural or organic products.

• Kroger:o Simple Truth Organico Simple Truth - All natural lineo Gluten Free productso Also carry national-brand products like: Horizon, Kashi, etc.

• Meijer: (http://allnaturalsavings.com/2013/10/13/meijer-naturals-vs-meijer-organics-brand/)

o Meijer Naturals Non- GMO No artificial sweeteners No trans Fats No high-fructose corn syrup No added hydrogenated oils No artificial food colorings or flavorings No artificial preservatives

o Meijer Organic

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Non-GMO No growth hormones or antibiotics No pesticides or herbicides Minimal processing No artificial ingredients

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Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic Research is needed to find the main issue of the Whole Foods

Markets. To find insight of our customers, we went to different Whole Foods markets in

East Lansing. We went to Kroger, Meijer, Foods for Living, and The Better Health Store.

We observed college students or people aging from 20-26 years old who were shopping

for healthy organic food. After carefully observing college students, we noticed several

behaviors. We mainly focused on what kinds of food they purchased and what they

noticed on the food of the organic section. Also, we observed how many people shopped

for organic food rather than normal items. However, we wanted to compare if people

went to this stores and only bought organic food or if they went to buy organic and

normal items as well. We noticed that the first thing to get the customers’ attention were

the ingredients. Most of them grabbed different brands of the same products and analyzed

the different prices and the ingredients in each one of them.

Kroger

Kroger off of Lake Lansing road was one of the stores that we observed. There

were a few things that we watched for when observing our target audience. The first was

the setup of the organic section; where it was placed, and how it was set up. Kroger’s

organic section is next to the produce and fresh bakery section. This area mainly

consisted of a variety of products from chips, frozen foods, soups, and a variety of other

products. There are also smaller organic and all natural sections throughout the store in

the other sections. Second, we kept track of the amount of people that were in the organic

section versus the people that were shopping in the other sections of the store. Thirdly,

we kept track of the person's sex age, and the products they were shopping for to see

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what the trends were.

There were a variety of people we watched, aging from 25 to 50 years old. We

were mainly looking for the younger people and students but there were not a lot of them

at the time that we went. We continued to still take observational notes on the variety of

people that were shopping to be able to get an idea who and why people shop organic

versus the normal brands.

The first person I saw was about 50 years old and was shopping in the organic

section of the store. He spent quite a few minutes in the potato chip section and then

grabbed a bag of the “Boulder Kettle chips” after observing a variety of chip products. He

then proceeded to go to the next aisle and begin to look at the soups and broth. He then

grabbed the “Pacific” brand of the soup broth and then left the organic section. When

observing his cart I noticed that approximately had about 80% of organic and all natural

products that consisted of chips, broth, soup, and vegetables.

The next person I observed was a woman about 35-40 years old. She only

shopped in the produce section and grabbed a bundle of green onions from the organic

section. Then I noticed there was a female that was approximately 21 years old and she

was shopping in the organic section and continued to look at and observe the “Kind”

nutrition bars. She then put them back down and walked away. Another woman that was

approximately 30 years old and her cart consisted of a multitude organic, all natural and

regular products. I noticed when following her shopping patterns she grabbed an organic

bag of chips ”kettle” brand and then preceded to grab a regular bag of “Lays” chips. She

also had a variety of products that were the same but some organic and all natural and

some regular brands. She had some of the all-natural chicken, as well as regular brand

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chicken. It was interesting to see how she was shopping for all natural, organic, and

regular products all in one trip.

When observing the number of people who were shopping in the organic section

and the regular sections we noticed at the time that we went shopping there were still

more people shopping in the regular sections versus the organic and all natural sections.

For example, when choosing between organic and non-organic bananas and cilantro,

customers as a whole preferred non-organic to organic. Many of the other foods in the

produce section were only available in either organic or non-organic, depriving customers

of a choice between the two types of produce.

Meijer

Meijer is another of our tops competitors. We went to Meijer and observed how

people behaved and what they did while buying organic products. Meijer has an entire

organic and healthy food section, where people buy most of their products from this aisle.

While analyzing some of the customers, we realized the customers who were interested in

eating healthy food, were girls. We observed four different girls who were in the organic

section. The first girl seemed she had have past experience shopping for organic

products. She knew exactly what she needed, she was fast and she had a list of things she

was going to buy. Everything she had in her shopping cart were healthy products. Two

of the girls we observed, always read the ingredients the products had. They spent a long

time reading all the tags in each of the products. Also, they asked for help because they

were undecided on which products they should buy, they wanted to know which one was

of a better quality. Overall, we noticed people buying organic food are more attentive to

what they products offer, such as ingredients.

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Food for Living

A food for Living is one of Whole Foods Market top organic and all natural

competitors in the East Lansing area. Walking into Foods For Living there was a very

upscale look to the store. Starting from the left side of the store I began looking in the

snack aisle. Walking through I noticed specifically two mothers with a child looking for

healthy snacks. Both women were in their late 30’s or early 40’s and were Caucasian

women. One thing that stood out about these women was that one of them was looking at

the nutrition facts of two snack foods, comparing the nutritional value. This seemed to be

a consistent trend throughout the store among a large variety of people.

Our focus group for this project is college students, but being in this store I stood

alone. Every person in this store was at a later stage in their life, around 30-40 years old

with some older people. The store was filled with women who came alone, or a spouse or

child accompanied them. This is an observation that most of us began to notice in many

of the stores.

A few tendencies I picked up on when observing these people, were not very

distinct, but took a minute to notice. The shoppers were very specific in their purchases,

especially with the fresh fruits and vegetables. Also, in the prepared foods/snacks section

the customers were very picky about their choices. One man specifically asked if the

tomatoes used on the sandwich he contemplated purchasing were organic. As stated

before, customers often check the nutrition labels on their selections to make sure they fit

into their diet. Even at the checkout lanes customers were very specific. I frequently

noticed that the customers brought their own bag to the store with them. There was also a

beer and wine section in the store, but it was empty upon my observation.

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Focus Group Report

Introductions: Hi my name is ____ and we will be conducting this focus group

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today.

Overall Approach: Our focus groups overall approach is to target participants that are 20-26 years old that like to eat at home or cook, as well as the people who tend to want to eat healthier foods. We are looking to find a better understanding of how and why people choose to eat all-natural or organic foods as well as their behavior patterns when they shop.

Number of Participants: 6-8 participants per focus group

Number of Focus Groups: 2 focus groups

Participant Profile:• Male and Females• Age: 21-40 years old

Opening Questions and RemarksHello, everyone. We are here today to ask you a few questions about all-natural and organic food and how you feel about it. We are also here to see what your shopping patterns are when going grocery shopping.Introductory Questions:

1. How is your day going? (30 seconds +)

2. If you could please write your name, age, and sex down on the survey sheet

for us.

Open-Ended Questions

1. When you think of shopping for organic foods what is the first thing that comes to

your mind?

a. (1:00-3:00 minutes)

2. What do you like best about organic or all natural foods?

a. (1:00 - 3:00 minute)

2. Are there specific products you shop for that are organic or all-natural vs. not?

a. (1-3:00 minutes)

4. Where do you typically do your organic or all-natural shopping?

a. (1:00-3:00 minutes)

5. Why do you prefer that store?

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a. (1:00-3:00 minutes)

Close-ended Questions:

1. Have you ever shopped at Whole Foods Market. If no, why not?

(0-0:30 seconds)

a. Yes or No

2. When you think of Whole Foods Market what is the first thing that comes to your

mind?

a. (1:00-3:00 minute)

2. Are you considering purchasing products from Whole Foods in the next month?

(0-0:30 seconds)

a. Yes or No

2. Are you considering buying all-natural or organic foods from any of these grocery

stores?

(1:00 + minutes)

a. Meijer

b. Kroger

c. Better Health Food Store

d. Food for Living

2. Are you satisfied with what the products Whole Foods offers?

(0:30-1:00 minute)

a. Yes or No

1. What else can we do to improve your experience with our store?

a. (1:00-3:00 minute)

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Ending questions:

1. Do you have any kind of advice for how can we improve our products?

a. (1:00+ minutes)

1. Do you feel that there is anything we could do to make your experience at Whole

Foods better?

a. (1:00 + minutes)

Total Time for each focus Group: 7-10 minutes depending on answers.

Results:

For our focus group, we gathered two groups of 6 people and conducted our

research. The point of our research was to calculate people’s preferences and habits

toward healthy food shopping. Our goals were to figure out what stores people go, their

behavioral patterns and their opinions about Whole Foods. Also, we asked them about

their advices about Whole Foods Market and these were the findings.

According to our focus group result, we concluded that when people shop for

organic foods, the first thing that comes to their mind is the price of the products.

However, people are aware of the benefits of consuming organic food and they still buy

it. Also, what they liked best about organic or all natural foods was their texture, color

and health benefits, such as reducing heart diseases, preventing cancer, that it boosts the

immune system and it ensures a safety world for future generations. Moreover, they say it

makes them feel better in the inside and out, and they feel more energized.

Some of the specific organic products people normally shop for are milk, brown

rice, vegetables, peanut butter and meats. They prefer organic products because their

texture is completely different from the non-organic ones. Some of our participants shop

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at Meijer, Kroger and Jacks. They shop at these stores because the stores have a grand

variety of what they are looking for, they have everything including organics and non-

organic food. On the other hand, some of them go to Whole Foods, Foods for Living and

Plum markets, which are only organic stores. The main advantage of these stores is that

they are based all on organic products, but some people are looking for the convenience

of having everything in one store.

In our focus group we concluded that most of the people have shopped at Whole

Foods, but they don't frequently go there. They said there are not many Whole Foods

stores in their surrounding area. People normally look for places of convenience, which

are near to them. The first thing that came to their mind when thinking about Whole

Foods is the price of the products. However, they also take into account the quality and

variety of the products in this store.

Most of our participants said they wouldn’t purchase product from Whole Foods

in the next month because there is not one near them. They said they preferred to go to

Meijer and Kroger because aside from having all kinds of products organic and

nonorganic they have access to other things aside from food. However, the participants

who can’t eat gluten prefer to go to Foods for Living and Whole Foods because of the

variety they offer and it’s trustworthiness.

Some of the participants said they are satisfied with the quality, but they are not

satisfied with the price. They think most of the products are overpriced and they can't

afford it. The participants who have been to Whole Foods suggested that it will be nice to

have more stores near their house and they wish the prices could be more reasonable.

Some advice to improve customer service in Whole Foods will be to have more offers in

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the store or a valuable customer card to accumulate point and get discounts depending on

how often they buy from Whole Foods market.

Survey Research Report

Our survey research approach was to target students and adults the age of 20 and

up. We were looking for any consistencies or differences when it came to a variety of

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things. We conducted a variety of questions from demographics, spending habits,

previous and present purchase history, and different questions about organic and all-

natural products.

Overall we had a total of 90 participants, 81 completed it and 9 failed to complete.

We asked 19 questions and they were in order from least important to most important.

The first part of the survey were demographic questions like sex, age, highest level of

education, employment status, and annual income. A few statistics of the 81 respondents

that answered were:

• 74 respondents were female (83%) and 15 were males (16%).

• The top three age ranges of the respondents were 18-24, which had 50

respondents (56%), 45-54, which had 17 respondents (19%) and 25-34, which had

9 respondents (10%). (We were mainly looking to look at the undergraduate and

graduate level students, but when we submitted the online survey there were

people that were of an older age.)

• The three highest levels of education were current college students with 45

respondents (51%), college graduate with 24 respondents (27%) and

postgraduates with 14 respondents (16%).

• The two highest employment statuses were employed for wages at 46 responses

(52%) and current student with 29 responses at (33%)

• The annual income for this survey is $19,999 (51%) and under.

Next we began to ask questions about if they had purchased organic or all-natural

food products and then progressively more detailed questions about their habits. Overall

80% or 69 of the respondents said yes to “previously purchasing all natural or organic

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food products”. Consequently, 41% of them said they purchase all-natural or organic

good less than once a month and 23% said they purchase once a month. This shows that

not many people shop frequently for organic foods.

One of the main problems with organic food are their prices. According to our

survey, 93% of the participants believe organic food is pricey. As we are targeting

college students, some of them can’t afford paying for these high prices products.

However, they stated that if organic food was sold at a lower price, 38% will definitely

purchase these products more often and 43% said they probably would purchase them as

well. They also said if the prices for organic products started to rise, 80% of the

respondents said they would not continue to buy these products.

Then, we made our respondents rank from 1 to 5: 1 being the most important, to select

why they purchase organic food. According to our respondents, the most important

feature of organic products is due to healthy reasons. Then, they take into account the

good quality these products offers and then the taste, texture and feeling of them.

Moreover, they think about the benefits of protecting the environment as sustainability

and lastly because of peace of mind.

Next, we started asking specific questions about Whole Foods to get a better

insight about what people think about us and what can we do to improve their experience.

The first question we asked was if they have ever shopped at Whole Foods Market. 50 %

of our respondents have shopped at Whole Foods market and 50% have not. The last time

our respondents purchased products from Whole Foods was more than a year ago, this

shows that 58% of our participants don’t go to Whole Foods regularly.

Afterward, we asked them what grocery stores did they use to shop on a regular

22

basis. Overall, 79% of the respondents said they use Meijer, 41% said they go to Kroger,

3% said they go to The Better Health Store and 1% said they go to Food for living. We

deducted this is mainly because Meijer and Kroger offer a grand variety of products, not

only organic products but also non-organic and because it is a supercenter store. Then we

asked if they were to only shop for organic or all-natural products where they would shop

for them and 41% said Meijer, 23% said Kroger and 27% said Whole Foods.

Then, we asked them some general questions to find out what type of organic

food they purchase. As a result, 75% of our respondents said they have shopped at a local

farmers market. Furthermore, we asked if they purchased both non-organic and organic

or natural products at the same time, and 27% said they sometimes did, 26% said they

often do, 18% said all of the time and 16% said they do it rarely. This means that most of

them shop for both organic and non-organic. When shopping for products, they

respondents varied a lot on buying different products from the organic, non-organic and

all-natural products. However, we found out respondents buy more non-organic products

such as processed food, dairy and meat, poultry and eggs. Then, the next products they

buy are the all-natural products and lastly they buy organic products.

In conclusion, 87% of our respondents enjoy healthy eating. We realized our

target market is aware of the benefits of our products, but most of them prefer a store

where there are organic and non-organic products. Also, we realized most of them

shopped at larger markets such as Meijer and Kroger because of the variety of products

they offer. Also, we realized that most of our respondent where girls, which tells us that

girls are mostly more common to go grocery shopping than boys. This helps us identify

our gender target market, because they are the ones who normally shop for our products.

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Creative Brief

OBJECTIVE OR STATEMENT PURPOSE: We want to know if a health food store

would be successful in a college town. If a higher-end, more expensive, healthier food

store option will thrive in an area normally known for living on a budget.

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TARGET AUDIENCE: College students

COMPETITION: Meijer, Kroger, Foods for Living, Better Health

CHOSEN COMMUNICATION: In order to obtain our research we chose to

communicate through social media, as this is the most active medium among college

students. This will help us have fast and immediate access to any information our target

audience needs. We felt that this would be the most productive way to gather information

and send information out.

Mandatory information: Whole Foods must abide by the guidelines and rules provided

through the FDA, USDA, and GF Certification. This ensures the quality of the products

that Whole Foods sells.

Style or tone: Wholesome / trendy / happy are the tones we felt are connected with

Whole Foods. Whole Foods provide healthy, fresh, and some of the best natural and

organic foods on the market. Trendy because health and eating right is an epidemic right

now and everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. Happy because that is what

Whole Foods stands for; their store is designed to provide a positive experience and the

products they sell there are good for you and make you feel good, which automatically

leads to happiness.

Timing: Over a period 6 months, which is about a college semester.

Conclusion

Overall, the various research techniques that we did with Whole Foods Market

concluded that there is a great opportunity for this store in the East Lansing area. There

are few things that Whole Foods Market will need to do in order to reach the proposed

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target market.

Throughout our research we conducted a variety of qualitative and quantitative

research methods from online surveys to focus groups. At first we created an online

survey that was targeted towards college students and females and men 20 years old and

up. We had 81 respondents that completed the survey. Then we conducted a focus group

that consisted of two focus groups consisting of 6 people total. Overall, in both the online

survey and focus group we found many similarities to what the respondents felt about

organic, all-natural food products, shopping habits, and price of the products. Many

people stated that they tend to shop at stores that offer more than just food products like

Meijer and Kroger’s versus the whole food or organic stores because they provided a

wider selection of products from home to outdoor. Another major issue that was seen in

the online survey and focus group was the problem with the prices of the products at

Whole Foods Market. The price of the products at Whole Foods Market probably will not

change tremendously, but by providing student discounts or various rewards it would

potentially pull in more of the student target market.

Furthermore, we noticed that many respondents have been trying to eat healthier

foods. When this happens customers are willing to spend more money on food products

that give them the full benefits of all natural or organic foods. At the same time noticed

even with the customers willing to spend more money on the healthier options people

were still going to purchase items that were non-organic or not all natural. Analyzing this

feedback from the online survey and focus group has enabled us to come up with ideas

that could potentially pull in the student based target market.

There are a few recommendations for the new Whole Foods Market in East

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Lansing that we have found would work based on our analyzed research. One tactic is

offering a rewards program or targeted program toward the college student. By opening

up this idea to strictly students on top of other rewards program you would be able to pull

in a whole new market. With many college campuses beginning to change their cafeterias

to be able to provide healthier options because of the health risks that come from being in

college. Another recommendation would be to kick start a social media campaign with

the local college campuses and putting on events of some sort at the store or on campus.

Social media is a major marketing tactic that is free and can specifically target the

specified target market in a fun and easy way.

Overall, there are a variety of things that Whole Foods Market could do to

potentially pull in the student population. The one major issue they will need to consider

is that a variety of stores like Meijer and Kroger that are now providing a wide selection

of organic and all natural foods. This will be the biggest issue that they will need to

consider when beginning to market the new store.

References

MacColl, S. (2014, September 12). Forget 'Whole Paycheck'-This Grocery Chain

Now Beats Many Competitors' Prices. Retrieved October 18, 2014, from

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/09/12/whole-foods-discount-grocery

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Jennings, D. (2014, April 29). Whole Foods' Newest Competitor In Organic: The

Kroger Co. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/29/kroger-vs-walmart-vs-whole-foods-

organic-wars-heat.aspx

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