WHOLE FOODS defends growth plan
WHOLE FOODS defends growth plan
In its first shareholder meeting since the announcement of the Wild Oats acquisition, Whole Foods has updated investors on meeting its long-term sales target. CEO John Mackey told shareholders that the company was “not going to do anything stupid” to meet its objective of USD12 billion in sales by 2010. "We're not going to destroy shareholder wealth or value to hit some arbitrary goal we made up," said Mackey. When asked about how he would handle Wild Oats selling private label goods in other grocers, Mackey said that he did not know the terms of Wild Oats’ contracts with other grocers but that “we really don’t want to see our product available in other supermarkets." Wild Oats currently has contracts with Ahold, Pathmark, Price Chopper and Amazon in the US as well as Dairy Farm’s ThreeSixty in Hong Kong.