Whole Foods COO and Co-President Walter Robb discusses the organic business

On the call: COO Walter Robb

The core business at Whole Foods is organic and natural foods. As the popularity of such foods grew, so did the competition.

But when the recession hit, some retailers reported cutting back on their organic offerings as shoppers focused on keeping the food spending low. Whole Foods co-President and Chief Operating Officer Walter Robb discusses the issue during a call with investors.

QUESTION: We’ve heard in the past year of vendors maybe shifting product back down to natural versus organic, just to bring a the price point down. I’m curious how organic is changing, if at all, in term of mix of business.

And to the extent that organic might still be holding up better on a relative basis, would you draw conclusions about the market share trends?

RESPONSE: Organic remains a strong part of the business, and I think the trend association just released new data on the size of the organic industry at $26 billion for the growth rate of 5 to 6 percent. Our own internal numbers show very clearly that. And you can look at the Nielson numbers too — organic dollars and units, while they’re down from historical double-digit results, are still well ahead of conventional growth rates.

That tells us, and we see it in our own data, that organic continues to be (important to us) even in the darkest of times.