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Amazon announced it would be shutting down six locations of its Whole Foods Market stores in the coming months. The affected ones are the outlets in U.S. states, including Brookline, Massachusetts; Tarzana, California; Engelwood and DePaul in Chicago, Illinois; and Mobile and Montgomery in Alabama.
Except for the Whole Foods Market store in Englewood, the other five locations are set to be closed by May 6. The Engelwood outlet will be shut in the coming months with no definite date yet.
"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," Whole Foods’ spokesman told Fox Business. "We are supporting impacted Team Members through this transition and expect that all interested, eligible Team Members will find positions at our other locations."
While the company confirmed the closure of the said branches, it declined to say how many workers are going to be affected. It was mentioned that Whole Foods Market employs more than 530 workers across its U.S. locations.
Amazon now owns the Whole Foods Market chain after acquiring it for $13.7 billion in 2017. With the closure announcement, Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that this development was disappointing and vowed to turn the stores into something that will “serve the community and support the surrounding businesses."
Bloomberg was the first to report about Amazon’s decision to shutter the six Whole Foods stores. It noted that Jeff Bezos’ company also announced in March that it would be shutting 68 of its brick-and-mortar retail outlets, including Amazon Pop Up stores in the U.S. and the U.K., Amazon Books, and Amazon 4-Star.
At that time, the company said that the move was part of its plan to put more effort and focus on its grocery business - Amazon Fresh, Amazon Style stores, Amazon Go, and Whole Foods Market - thus, the recent decision to shut WFM was a bit unexpected.
Finally, amid the closures of its stores, Amazon just launched eight new Amazon Fresh grocery stores. This expands the total number of this brand to 46 locations worldwide.
