Staff in Whole Foods' two New York superstores seem genuinely pleased to be working in a supermarket and are happy to show shoppers where to find transfat-free Oreos and to explain that Whole Foods' fresh fish comes from day boats, working out of the firm's own docks in Maine. It is also overturning the convention that grocery jobs are 'McJobs'. It sells natural food from reputable, small-scale suppliers. Whole Foods is battling the industrialisation of farming.
He has transformed 'hippy business' from a recipe for disaster to a prescription for world-beating - and, perhaps, world-changing - growth. Over the last two-and-a-half decades, Mackey has proved almost everyone wrong and, in the process, has turned conventional business wisdom on its head. But we've proved them wrong everywhere we've gone, and we'll carry on.' People dismissed us sort of a fad, just a bunch of weird food hippies. Then they said it would not work outside Austin, that it would not work outside Texas, that we would never succeed in California or Chicago or New York. 'They said our first store in Austin would not work. Mackey is anticipating a certain amount of scepticism. Whole Foods' journey to self-actualisation has taken time - some 25 years so far - and Britain is the company's first overseas investment. When those needs get met, other needs begin to assert themselves - safety, belonging, having a sense of love and friendship, then self-esteem.
'I was up late with a friend, having dinner, eating and drinking lots of wine.'Īs he scans the menu in vain for a vegan muffin, Mackey asks: 'Are you familiar with Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs? His theory is that our first and most important needs are physical - food, water, sex. 'I only got a few hours sleep last night,' he says. He's got no mobile phone, no BlackBerry, not even a pen. He answers the phone immediately: 'I'll see you in five minutes in the lobby grill.' He's wearing Montrail running shoes, khaki trousers, an out-of-shape polo shirt and a silver Patagonia anorak. Mackey, who always books the cheapest hotel and rents bottom-of-the-range hire cars, is staying today at at the Marriott hotel in mid-town Manhattan. Whereas many US corporate bosses like to remind journalists how important they are - McDonald's chief executive Jim Skinner has been known to summon reporters to Chicago, only to conduct a telephone interview because he is too busy to leave his office and it is impossible to get into Coca-Cola's Atlanta headquarters, let alone talk to anyone, without at least four PR minders - John Mackey is down-to-earth and accessible. Last month, Mackey, 52, invited Observer Food Monthly to see meet him at the Whole Foods store in Union Square, New York. Celebrities are regularly spotted browsing the aisles: Angelina Jolie was photographed recently in the New York store Kirsten Dunst and Jake Gyllenhaal in the Hollywood outlet. Mackey is doing for US supermarkets what Pret A Manger's Julian Metcalfe did for British sandwich bars - mixing natural ingredients and customer service in a way that appeals to consumers who want something better for themselves and the environment and are willing to pay more to get it. The firm sells organic and chemical-free food at prices far higher than its rivals, but the speed of its growth has made it America's fourth-largest chain and the world's biggest, and most profitable, organic grocer. While most food giants are piling it high and selling it cheap, Whole Foods is focusing on quality at high prices - and reaping the profits. The supermarket chain is the food-retail phenomenon of the US. Whole Foods may not yet be a household name in Britain but, if Mackey has his way, it soon will be. John Mackey, a scruffy-haired American vegan, has bought Barkers and is turning it into the first British branch of his store, Whole Foods Market. After 135 years, Barkers of Kensington, west London's oldest and grandest department store, is under new management. A stone's throw from Hyde Park, hard-hatted construction workers are hard at it 24 hours a day to create the world's biggest organic department store.
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