JOHN MACKEY
1953–
John Mackey’s mission to get Americans eating a healthier diet eventually made organic food mainstream. In the process, the businessman created one of the biggest grocery store chains in the US, with hundreds of outlets.
After dropping out of college, John Mackey, a committed vegetarian, scraped together $45,000 from family and friends in 1978 to open the Safer Way natural foods store in Austin, Texas, with girlfriend Renee Lawson. The shop sold no meat, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, or white flour. Sales did not take off, and in its first year of operation, the store lost half of Mackey’s ...
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