What is certain to have taken place, however, is that just as Texas Monthly was coming out with its July cover story on Mackey and Whole Foods, Amazon agreed to buy the company for $13.7 billion, with Goldman advising Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the takeover.
He didn't use that phrase per se when describing the deal to employees at a town hall on Friday, but he might as well have: If you read the transcript of his remarks, which Whole Foods included yesterday in a new SEC filing, his praise of Amazon sounds more like a man toasting his fiancée at their engagement party.
Morgan Stanley analysts have also written in a report that Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods "creates an entry point to drug delivery" and provides the necessary real estate. Costco Wholesale shares were down 1.90 percent at $163.93.
Those big-box competitors were already disadvantaged by Amazon's captive audience, an estimated 80 million Prime members, who could theoretically order groceries online or task Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant, to prepare a delivery or arrange for a pickup at the nearest Whole Foods.
Amazon has been on the edge of the grocery business for a while. Meanwhile, Walmart, quite comfortable in physical retail where it has outsold its rivals for years, has been trying to up its e-commerce game with Amazon, most notably through its multi-billion dollar acquisition of Jet. "This would be the way that Amazon and Whole Foods expands into the mid-to-low income shopper households". I think we coulda talked for 10 hours.
Say "Whole Foods" and some envision a gastronomic nirvana, overflowing with a healthy bounty worth a premium price.
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Stevens shared a sentiment expressed by other aficionados: excitement about the convenience of getting groceries from the store delivered to her mixed with concern about changes to a company that helped pioneer the organic-food market in the U.S. "They're at the forefront of technology", he said of Amazon, noting, "I think we're gonna get a lot of those innovations in our stores". But the internet retailer isn't "stupid enough" to change Whole Foods' brand, Mackey told employees at Friday's gathering.
Whole Foods may just be the beginning.
It's also not clear if Amazon will sell the technology to other companies - for the sake of being able to profit off this vertical when the competition's already sealed off from its customers anyways. In fact, the footprints of Amazon and Whole Foods are strikingly similar in many respects.
Bauer also is an Amazon shopper who occasionally buys food on the website.
Whole Foods has been pressured as a key sales figure has declined.
"Very few entities could outbid" Amazon, Short said. The company has blamed the struggles on the wider availability of organic and natural food at traditional retailers, and said it is working on efforts like a loyalty program to improve sales.
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