Looks like many of us may have to find a new place to get our pecorino sardo and topo chico mineral water in the near future:
Amazon will close six of its Whole Foods Market store locations across the country after last week reporting its first quarterly loss in years.
The closures in Alabama, California, Massachusetts and Illinois will impact just six stores of more than 500 locations, multiple reports said.
"As we continue to position Whole Foods Market for long-term success, we regularly evaluate the performance and growth potential of each of our stores, and we have made the difficult decision to close six stores," a Whole Foods spokeswoman said, according to Bloomberg.
Yeah, that's gotta hurt big time. Each one of those stores is a major cash cow. Believe me—I shop in one regularly and it ain't cheap.
Notably, even as the company is closing some Whole Foods stores, it's opening more and more of its house-branded supermarkets:
Seattle-based Amazon opened its first Amazon Fresh store in late August 2020, a 35,000-square-foot location in Woodland Hills, Calif. It now has 29 Amazon Fresh supermarkets in six states — California (13 stores), Illinois (seven), Washington (four), Virginia (two), Maryland (one) and Pennsylvania (one) — and Washington, D.C. (one), ranging from about 25,000 to 45,000 square feet. The most recent opening came in late April, a 35,000-square-foot Amazon Fresh in La Verne, Calif. The banner's 30th location, another 35,000-square-foot store, is slated to open in Murrieta, Calif., on May 5.
I'm gonna go ahead and guess that Amazon isn't gonna be losing any money on the grocery front anytime soon.
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