Where Amazon Might Be Taking Whole Foods

In John Mackey’s new memoir, the Whole Foods founder and former CEO recalls how in mid-2022, shortly before he left the grocery chain, he took MDMA and psilocybin during a spiritual retreat. While under the influence, Mackey agonized over the ways he had been “disrespected and disempowered” after selling Whole Foods to Amazon five years earlier, he writes, and he fretted about the acquirer’s culture creeping into his natural grocery chain.

As the MDMA wore off, Mackey said he “let go of my hurt and anger toward Amazon as unnecessary.” I can’t imagine how he feels now. As I reported this week, Amazon has opened a small grocery store in Chicago in the same building as a Whole Foods, offering the kinds of products Whole Foods has long avoided: those with artificial sweeteners and color additives, such as Coca-Cola and Tide. The store opening follows Amazon’s statement earlier this month that it’s adding an automated miniwarehouse inside a Whole Foods store in Pennsylvania that would stock items Whole Foods does not.