With the amount of real estate Whole Foods Market has amassed from its giant natural and organic supermarkets located across the country, you'd think at least one location would turn its rooftop into an organic garden and supply the store below with the freshest, local organic produce.While that hasn't happened…yet, the chain has announced that it has given a loan to support an urban organic farm project in Illinois.

Take it with a grain of hand-harvested crystallized pink Himalayan sea salt, but Whole Foods Market—the iconic gourmet natural and organic grocery chain—is reporting that more Americans than ever are opting for natural and organic foods.

In light of the recent Stanford study that called into question the value of higher-priced organic foods, Whole Foods Market, the leading retail chain with a focus on organic foods, defended the industry in a recent interview with Yahoo's The Daily Ticker.

Whole Foods Market became the first certified organic national retail chain in 2003—and again when procedures changed in 2009—and now, Mile High Organics based in Boulder, Colorado has become the first certified organic online retailer to achieve certified organic status.

Whole Foods Market, the nation's leading natural and organic supermarket chain, has announced effective Earth Day (April 22), the retailer will be the first national grocer to no longer offer its customers any seafood carrying a "red rating," which the Blue Ocean Institute and the Monterey Bay Aquarium use to identify species that are either being overfished or employ methods used in catch that put ecosystems and other marine life at risk.

In an exclusive Mashable.com report on March 21, 2012, Whole Foods Market, the nation's largest chain of natural and organic supermarkets, announced that its third annual Do Something Reel Film Festival celebrating feature and documentary films focused on food and environmental issues, is taking the event online with streaming digital content that will help fund green filmmaking grants.

If conversations with your smart phone have begun to underwhelm you, perhaps a talking grocery cart may excite you. Called "Smarter Cart," early prototypes are being developed with Microsoft's Kinect sensors for Whole Foods Market.

Whole Foods Market, the nation's leading supermarket chain focused on organic and natural foods, household and personal care items, announced that it will become the first national retailer to carry USDA certified organic NSA (no sulfites added) wines from legendary wine-making regions in Italy and Spain.

Earth Day may be over, but there's a lasting celebration for the green movement: Whole Foods Market, the leading natural food chain, announced the launch of its Eco-Scale program.