Whole Foods Fattens Up in Grocery Retail

38. Whole Foods
Market Cap: $17b
Revenue: $11.7b
EPS: $2.52

Whole Foods Market ascended to No. 38 on this year’s Bloomberg Businessweek 50 ranking of best-performing U.S. companies. The chain of natural food supermarkets was No. 75 last year. Bloomberg News reporter Leslie Patton discussed future expansion plans with co-CEO John Mackey. The company’s co-founder also explained why he once said he’d prefer to leave his creation in the hands of a millennial, rather than a Gen Xer.

Whole Foods has said it plans to expand to 1,000 stores. How much of that is going to be Whole Foods opening stores vs. acquisitions?
We made an announcement in October to acquire six Johnnie’s Foodmaster locations in Boston. There will be more like that, but I can’t tell you what that will be because they’re all opportunistic. We’re changing the name, but we kept a lot of their employees. When we acquired Wild Oats [in 2007], we changed the name and kept most of the employees.