UCLA LIBRARY + KCRW PRESENTS
Long before organic food went mainstream, and before Whole Foods was a household name, there was Sandy Gooch. In 1977, Gooch founded Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Food Markets in West Los Angeles, seeding the first natural food market chain in the U.S. Gooch’s markets not only transformed the way many Americans prepare, eat and shop for food and health care products, but her success blazed a path for female entrepreneurs at a time when women struggled to obtain credit and bank loans. In 1993, Gooch sold her company to Whole Foods Market for $60 million, merging the nation’s two biggest natural foods supermarket chains.
Gooch will share her incredible story during the inaugural Sandy Gooch and Harry Lederman Endowed Lecture in a conversation with UCLA alumnus Evan Kleiman, the host of KCRW Good Food radio show/podcast, cookbook author and former chef-restaurateur. With selections from the Sandy Gooch Papers(opens in a new tab), accessible for research at UCLA Library Special Collections, discover how Sandy introduced a retail model that continues to shape the food industry today and find out what it means to be “goochable.”
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