Sandy Gooch
Founder, Mrs. Gooch's Natural Foods Markets
Sandy Gooch is the founder of Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Foods Markets and president of Sandy Gooch Enterprises. She built Mrs. Gooch’s into a large chain of natural foods markets before it was acquired by Whole Foods Market in 1993.
Much of her work has centered on nutrition education: in 1995 she created the Healthy School Meals Team Program at Venice High School in Los Angeles, and she has served on the boards of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, Bastyr University, and the advisory board of Growing Great.
She is a member of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the International Women’s Forum, and is the author of If You Love Me Don’t Feed Me Junk. UCLA has acquired the papers of Sandy Gooch and Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Foods Markets, and in 2023 Sonoran University of Health Sciences awarded her an honorary PhD in Humanities.
