Almost exactly eight years since acquiring Whole Foods Market, Amazon is on the verge of restructuring the natural grocery chain’s leadership.
In an internal memo obtained last week by Business Insider, Amazon is consolidating the Whole Foods leadership team under Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores, with former Whole Foods Market CEO Jason Buechel in the top seat.
In January, Buechel (who was named Whole Foods CEO in 2022) was appointed VP at Worldwide Grocery Stores, putting him in control of Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market and Amazon Go. At the time, the move already signaled that there were plans to align the grocery banner deeper within the broader e-commerce giant’s executive oversight.
The new leadership arrangement will bring the Whole Foods corporate team under Amazon’s performance review and pay structures over the next 12 months. It will not affect Whole Foods warehouse and in-store workforce, according to the memo.
The move gives Amazon direct control over the Whole Foods banner after initially taking a more hands-off approach to the grocery chain.
The news comes after Amazon Fresh banners began touting “low prices” outside of many stores in recent weeks.
“Amazon is following the same blueprint as Walmart,” said grocery consultant and former Whole Foods executive Errol Schweizer. “Walmart does this all the time. They announce price drops and then a week or two later, you read they are laying off a thousand back-of-house or white collar supply chain employees or restructuring their management levels to eliminate redundancies.”
The strategy was likely always to centralize Whole Foods under Amazon and use Buechel as the figurehead of that trajectory, Schweizer said. “Grinding more and more revenue out of the same pot.”
“Buechel was the chosen one because that’s the language he speaks,” Schweizer said. “He comes from the consulting world; he was heading up the Whole Foods IT Division, and they trained him towards more leadership.”
What does this mean for Whole Foods suppliers? Schweizer expects the cost of doing business with the natural channel retailer will continue to climb.
“Know your point of contact and who the decision maker is in your category,” he said. “Keep your ear to the ground about higher fees, higher deductions and, generally, higher costs attached to doing business at Whole Foods.”