Amazon Fresh Store Closures Boost Whole Foods Push

Amazon.com Inc. announced on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, that it will close all its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go physical stores, convert select locations to Whole Foods Market outlets, and redirect investment into same-day perishables delivery. The move shifts its grocery strategy toward delivery and banner growth.

Store Closures and Whole Foods Expansion

Amazon will close all 57 Amazon Fresh stores and the 15 remaining Amazon Go locations, while continuing Amazon Fresh online service where available. The company said it had seen encouraging signals but "we haven't yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion."

Capital freed by the closures will fund expansion of Whole Foods Market, which now has more than 550 locations and has recorded over 40% sales growth since Amazon’s 2017 acquisition. Amazon plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods stores over the next few years.

Amazon is also testing new formats and in-store arrangements. The smaller Whole Foods Market Daily Shop operates in five locations, with five more planned by the end of 2026. The company launched Amazon Grocery alongside Whole Foods in Chicago, trialed a store-within-store in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, and is developing a supercenter concept combining groceries, household essentials, and general merchandise.

Same-Day Delivery Growth and Technology Deployment

Perishables were added to Amazon’s Same-Day Delivery service in 2025, and perishable grocery sales through that channel have grown 40 times since January 2025. Same-day perishables now reach over 2,300 cities and towns, with fresh groceries accounting for nine of the 10 most-ordered items in those areas.

Same-Day Delivery is available in more than 5,000 U.S. cities and towns, offering produce, dairy, meat, baked goods, and frozen items alongside millions of other products, all delivered within hours and backed by a Freshness Guarantee. Across all channels, Amazon records more than $150 billion in annual gross grocery sales and serves over 150 million grocery customers each year, ranking among the top three U.S. grocers.

Amazon will leverage technology developed in its physical-store experiments. The Just Walk Out cashierless system, created for Amazon Go, now operates in more than 360 third-party locations across five countries. It is deployed in breakrooms at over 40 North American fulfillment centers, with broader rollouts planned for 2026. The company cited operational improvements, including cafeteria wait times dropping from 25 minutes to 3 minutes after deployment.

These changes shift capital and real estate away from Amazon’s small-format stores toward delivery infrastructure and the Whole Foods banner, concentrating resources on channels and formats with the strongest customer traction.