Is Whole Foods just the beginning?
Where is Seattle-based Amazon headed in the grocery industry? The question is explored in a July 28 story by the New York Times.
In the story, industry consultant Brittain Ladd, who previously worked on Amazon’s grocery operations until 2017, said: “People really need to understand — Whole Foods is the beginning, it’s not the end. It’s not everything.”
Amazon acquired Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market two years ago for $13.4 billion. Several months before Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market, according to the New York Times, a memo circulated inside Amazon that imagined “an ambitious new grocery chain” started by the retailer to offer “robust produce, fresh food and prepared meals sections.” Nonperishable items would be stored on a separate floor, away from customers, “where shoppers could order those items with an app, and while they shopped for fresh food, the other products would be brought down in time for check out,” the article stated.
But when Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market, the talk inside Amazon surrounding an “ambitious new grocery chain” basically ceased, the New York Times said. “But two years later, instead of Whole Foods being the answer to Amazon’s grocery ambitions, it seems to have only whetted executives’ appetite,” according to the story.
Amazon is thinking again about aggressive investment in groceries and is considering designing stores specifically with pickup and delivery, and with a smaller area dedicated to fresh shopping — just like the old memo said, the report stated.