How Whole Foods went from a hippie natural foods store to Amazon's $13.7 billion grocery weapon

Whole Foods went through many phases before being acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017.Before Whole Foods became Amazon's biggest subsidiary, it was a tiny organic grocery store in Austin, Texas.This is the story of how it got there.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Whole Foods has had quite the ride.Over the course of 39 years, CEO and cofounder John Mackey has taken Whole Foods from a small natural foods store in the hippie haven of Austin, Texas, to an international behemoth.At the beginning, Whole Foods was only 10,500 square feet and had 19 employees. But the idea of natural food stores was only beginning, and as one of the first in the country, the seed that Mackey planted blossomed over time.Through acquisitions of natural food stores around the country, the chain became larger and had ambitious growth plans. But it was also humbled a few times in its history — before being purchased by Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017, Whole Foods weathered a flood, financial downturns, and FTC probes.Now that it's owned by Amazon, a new chapter is about to begin. Plenty has been said about what might change for the chain now, but it's also important to see what has changed for the chain in the past.We've put together a timeline with some of the most important moments in Whole Foods' history: