Dive Brief:
- Amazon announced Monday that Whole Foods Market CEO Jason Buechel will also take on the role of vice president for worldwide grocery stores for Amazon.
- Buechel’s appointment to the position follows the departure of former Amazon grocery leader Tony Hogget, who announced on LinkedIn in October that he was departing from the company.
- This leadership move furthers Amazon’s efforts to unify its grocery operating business, which it combined into a single entity in 2022.
Dive Insight:
Buechel, who already oversees the vast majority of Amazon’s grocery stores as the head of Whole Foods, will now be atop the Amazon Fresh traditional supermarket chain and Amazon Go fleet of convenience stores.
Claire Peters, the leader of Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go and Grocery Partnerships, will remain in her role, as will Anand Varadarajan, head of product and technology for the worldwide grocery stores unit, according to the company. Both executives will report to Buechel.
“This expanded responsibility gives me an opportunity to look after the collective grocery offering across Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go and Grocery Partnerships — and help move forward our goal of making grocery shopping simpler, faster, and more affordable for customers,” Buechel said in a LinkedIn post on Monday.
Doug Herrington, CEO of worldwide Amazon stores, praised Buechel’s experience running Whole Foods in the Monday announcement. Buechel, who joined Whole Foods in 2013 — before Amazon bought the chain — became its CEO in 2022.
“In his time as CEO, Jason has unlocked our ability to make high-quality natural and organic groceries more affordable and accessible to customers,” Herrington said in a letter to Amazon employees released on Monday, adding that Whole Foods has achieved “record sales growth” under Buechel.
Herrington added that Amazon has made “notable progress in our vision to make grocery shopping simpler, faster, and more affordable for customers” since consolidating its grocery and convenience store units into a single group in 2022.
Amazon currently runs more than 500 Whole Foods locations in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. It also operates about 60 Fresh grocery stores and 16 Go locations — although it has steadily downsized that banner since 2023, when it hit a peak of about 30 locations.
Amazon disclosed last week that it would shutter its Amazon Go store in Woodland Hills, California, on Feb. 26, sister publication C-Store Dive reported.
