WHOLE FOOD MARKET INC

Whole Food Market Inc

Whole Food Market Inc

Introduction

A strategic business unit (SBU) is a form of organizational structure that clusters individual businesses together under a single manager or management group, for purposes of synergy. Synergy may take the form of similar or common customers, like distribution networks, common resource needs, and similarities where economies of scale or economies of scope can be realized. The strategic business unit allows management to focus attention on common customers, geography, or product groups with the expectation of cost efficiencies. Strategic business units are commonly found in very large organizations or conglomerates where a single corporation owns multiple businesses. SBUs provide a structure for the management of the entire business portfolio by organizing individual business into units that build on similar relationships while maximizing resource capability.

In this paper we are focusing on Whole Food Market Inc production unit because of which the company is facing growth because of this unit. The U.K. market is in dispute over the European market due to its label "edible" (without direct equivalence with the EU regulation on bioproducts, is booming and now accounts for nearly 3.5% of U.K. food market. According to a recent report published by the British Dietetic Association, entitled "Eating Habits of British Citizens", 2010, three-quarters of U.K. consumers buy edible products. The unprecedented growth of the sector is creating real problems. It is estimated that edible food (meat) sales reached U.K. £15.7 billion in 2006. Although this sector is only 3% of total food sales, its growth rate is outrageous compared to an industry almost frozen. And continue to grow thanks to large retailers (Borch, 2006).

A rate of double-digit growth simply means that there are not enough edible farms and organically raised animals in the United States to meet demand. The result is a tremendous pressure to increase supply, which in many cases is leading to questionable practices.

Despite the confusion of the consumer and the economic downturn, health continues to influence food purchases by consumers in the U.K. However, taste is king for consumers regardless of the benefits of a health product. Food manufacturers can not compromise on taste when developing healthier versions of existing products or when they introduce new.

This pressure has forced the edible food (meat) retailing companies, such as Whole Foods to reconsider their options and get back to focus on the quality of the product. Organic foods with high fiber rate are becoming more popular these days. Thus Whole Foods should opt for a more suitable strategy to attract these health-conscious customers by introducing new range of fiber-rich products with low-calorie content.

More importantly, Whole Foods should be aware of the false marketing campaigns, which are now becoming a usual trend for the competitors to make money. Fashion for the "naturalness" has formed a global market of biological products as early as 1990, and today edible label on a product familiar to Americans. As for Britain, experts differ in their assessment of prospects of development of the edible food ...