1992: $3.75/share 2011: $57.88/share
Whole Foods Market, Inc. In 1978, 25-year-old college dropout John Mackey and his 21-year-old girlfriend Rene Lawson, borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open a small natural foods store called SaferWay in Austin, Texas (the name being a spoof of Safeway). When the couple was evicted from their apartment for storing food products in it, they decided to live at the store. Because it was zoned for commercial use, there was no shower stall, so they bathed using a water hose attached to their dishwasher.
Two years later, John Mackey partnered with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to merge SaferWay with their Clarksville Natural Grocery, resulting in the opening of the original Whole Foods Market on September 20, 1980. At 12,500 square feet, and with a staff of 19, the store was quite large in comparison to the standard health food store of the time. Less than a year later, on Memorial Day in 1981, the most damaging flood in 70 years devastated the city of Austin. Caught in the flood waters, the store’s inventory was wiped out, and most of the equipment was damaged. The losses were approximately $400,000, and Whole Foods Market had no insurance. Customers, neighbors, and staff pitched in to repair and clean up the damage. Creditors, vendors, and investors all assisted in helping the store recover, and it reopened 28 days after the flood. Beginning in 1984, Whole Foods Market began its expansion out of Austin. Through expansion and acquisitions, Whale Foods Market has more than 300 stores in North America and the United Kingdom and has 54,000 employees.
The company went public in January 1992 trading shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market as WFMI.
If you know of a company that started small and is big today, leave a comment.
