Whole Foods Market Inc. is an American supermarket chain specializing in organic food that opened on September 20, 1980, in Austin, Texas, its current headquarters. As of September 2015, the company has 91,000 employees and 431 supermarkets among the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and has its main produce procurement office in Watsonville, California.

Whole foods are foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible, before being consumed. Whole foods typically do not contain added salt, carbohydrates, or fat. Examples of whole foods include unpolished grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, and animal products, including meats and non-homogenized dairy products. Although, according to some very old sources, including the Bible, all human food was originally whole food, the earliest use of the term in the post-industrial age appears to be in 1946 in The Farmer, a quarterly magazine published and edited from his farm by F. Newman Turner, a writer and pioneering organic farmer. The magazine sponsored the establishment of the Producer Consumer Whole Food Society Ltd, with Newman Turner as president and Derek Randal as vice-president. Whole Food was defined as ‘Mature produce of field, orchard, or garden without subtraction, addition, or alteration grown from seed without chemical dressing, in fertile soil manured solely with animal and vegetable wastes, and composts therefrom, and ground, raw rock and without chemical manures, sprays, or insecticides’ Its principal aim was to act as a liaison between suppliers and the growing public demand for such food. In 1960 the leading organic food organization called the Soil Association opened a shop in the name selling organic and whole grain products in London, UK.