Austin, Texas — May 1, 2002.

Whole Foods Market (Nasdaq: WFMI), the world's largest natural and organic foods supermarket, today opened its first location outside the United States. The new 40,000 square foot store in Toronto's Yorkville neighborhood is centrally located downtown to bring a shopping experience unlike anything else found in Canada.

“Today not only marks the opening of our 132nd store in 22 years, but our first international store,” said Walter Robb, Executive Vice President of Operations. “Toronto is a very sophisticated, ethnically diverse market. We are very excited to expand the Whole Foods Market brand outside of the United States, to offer Canadians a second-to-none shopping experience sure to satisfy and delight a variety of customers ranging from healthy families to serious gourmet cooks.”

The new store offers a wide-variety of natural and organic groceries, the best quality produce available, natural meats and a dry aged meat case, smoked seafood, a wide variety of hearth-baked, crusty breads, fresh brick oven pizzas; an organic salad bar, a sushi bar, more than 350 types of cheese from Canadian producers and from around the world, a coffee and tea bar featuring in-store coffee roasting, and a community classroom available for classes regarding cooking, food issues and wellness trends.

Celebrating its tenth year being publicly traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Whole Foods Market has produced impressive financial results and seen strong stock price performance. Last June, the company split its stock 2-for-1 and recently traded at a new all-time high of $48.29 on April 29, 2002. The Company will announce its second quarter fiscal 2002 results after the market's close on May 8, 2002.