'Not a good fit': is Amazon looking to offload Whole Foods Market amid rise of agentic AI adoption?

Amazon is exploring strategic options for Whole Foods Market, according to Brittain Ladd, a supply chain consultant and former Amazon executive.

It stumped up $13.7 billion for Whole Foods in 2017., and recently unveiled a new concept store in Plymouth Meeting, PA, USA combining WFM natural and organic products with Amazon’s name brand groceries and household essentials, with the aim of allowing customers to complete their entire shopping list in one location.

The store features a 10,000-square foot automated micro-fulfillment centre that houses over 12,000 unique items, enabling customers to order additional products via QR codes while shopping in-store or through online delivery and pickup options. Amazon says that it plans to refine and expand the offering to additional stores over time.

In a LinkedIn post, Ladd said: “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is priceless. Nothing demonstrates this fact more than a video released by Amazon and WFM to demonstrate their latest efforts at making grocery shopping more convenient for customers by thoughtfully blending our grocery offerings and leveraging new fulfillment capabilities in creative ways."

“WFM CEO Jason Buechel says he is "excited" about the latest innovation to make shopping easier: "We’ve built an automated MFC in the store's back of house area at our Pennsylvania location, giving customers the opportunity to add items they can't find in-store - all in one stop. I am so excited for our customers to experience this innovation to shop for everything on their grocery list at one convenient stop or one online order, all while maintaining the quality standards our customers trust on shelves at Whole Foods Market."

Ladd countered: “What Buechel fails to mention is that the reason why 12,000 unique items (CPG products such as Tide, Cheetos, Oreos) have to be placed inside the MFC is because he refuses to allow the products to be sold on the shelves at WFM. Stated another way, the reason why customers can't find all of the items they want to buy in the store is because of Buechel.”

Ladd also argues that Buechel is leaving out the fact that on average, it costs nearly $11 million to purchase and install the robots from Fulfil and build a 10,000 square foot MFC. Yearly operating costs average $2 million.

“Do the math: 528 stores × $11 million = $5.8 billion just to install the MFCs and another $1 billion every year to operate them. That’s nearly $6 billion to install a solution to fix a problem WFM could easily solve for a fraction of the costs.”

“It's a charade. Whole Foods wants the moral high ground and the revenue from the very products they publicly ban. What’s worse is that the video proves that the shopping experience hasn't improved, it's become more complex to allow WFM to pretend they don't sell sell Coke and Cheetos.”

Ladd believes that, if WFM won't rebrand to ‘Whole Foods+’ and embrace the full grocery experience to include selling CPG products, Amazon should divest the business. According to his sources, it has come to the conclusion that "Whole Foods isn't a good fit," and is discussing/exploring strategic options for the retailer.

He concluded: “In plain English, Amazon wants to divest WFM. It's about time. Amazon has invested over $1 billion to improve their ability to sell and deliver perishable products the same day. It's changed the size and trajectory of its grocery business. Agentic AI will accelerate the adoption of online shopping and minimise the importance of stores. There is no value in Amazon keeping its Amazon Fresh stores or WFM. It’s time to move on.”

“The company goes on trial in October 2026 for being a monopoly. Divesting Whole Foods prior to the trial will weaken the FTC’s claim that it is a monopoly. For this reason alone, divesting Whole Foods makes sense.”

Amazon did not respond to our request for comment.

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