Whole Foods Switching To Wind Power

(AP)  Natural food grocer Whole Foods Market Inc. said it will rely on wind energy for all of its electricity needs, making it the largest corporate user of renewable energy in the United States.

The Austin-based company said it is purchasing 458,000 megawatt-hours of wind energy credits a year, enough to power 44,000 homes annually, from Renewable Choice Energy of Boulder, Colorado.

The decision follows the publicly traded company's mission of environmental stewardship without losing sight of the bottom line, Whole Foods regional president Michael Besancon said Tuesday.

"It's a sales driver rather than a cost," he said. "All of those things we do related to our core values: help drive sales, help convince a customer to drive past three or four other supermarkets on the way to Whole Foods."

Besancon declined to discuss the cost of the purchase, but said it was in line with the company's current utility budget.

Because power does not flow from wind farms directly to a home or business through a utility grid, Whole Foods is purchasing energy credits, like a voucher, that assure wind energy eventually gets placed on the grid.

The company began rolling out wind energy for all 173 stores in the United States and Canada last month. Prior to that, 20 percent of its electricity had been from renewable sources.

As of Oct. 1, 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed Whole Foods as the eighth largest user of renewable energy among U.S. corporations and governmental agencies.

Based on those figures, Tuesday's announcement would put Whole Foods ahead of the U.S. Air Force (312,416 megawatt-hours) and corporate leader Johnson & Johnson (241,398 megawatt-hours), according to the EPA.

Founded in 1980 in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market is the world's leading natural and organic foods supermarket and America's first national certified organic grocer. In fiscal year 2005, the company had sales of $4.7 billion and currently has 180 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, according to a company release.

Whole Foods is best known in Britain for its Fresh & Wild organic chain. It plans to open a 75,000-square-foot store in central London next year.