Amazon has put the CEO of Whole Foods Market in charge of its overall grocery business, including its recently relaunched Fresh supermarket chain.
Amazon announced Monday that Jason Buechel will take on expanded responsibilities as vice president of Amazon's Worldwide Grocery Stores unit while continuing his current role as CEO of Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods. That includes oversight for not only Amazon Fresh but also its Amazon Go convenience stores.
Buechel has been with Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired for $13.7 billion in 2017, since 2013. Prior to his role as CEO, he served as chief operating officer, providing operational oversight over all Whole Foods' stores and overseeing the company’s technology, supply chain and distribution, store real estate and design, and human relations functions.
"In his time as CEO, Jason has unlocked our ability to make high-quality natural and organic groceries more affordable and accessible to customers, helping [Whole Foods] achieve record sales growth and expand to over 535 locations," Worldwide Amazon Stores CEO Doug Herrington said in a company memo.
Fresh relaunch
Amazon has had mixed success with its efforts to launch brick-and-mortar grocery stores, according to analysts. It debuted its traditional supermarket chain, Amazon Fresh, in August 2020 with a location in California, but closed some stores and halted the rollout in February 2023 to reconfigure the design. Some original stores were updated and new locations with the revamped look were opened last year. In addition, Fresh only recently began to take advantage of the connection with and success of Whole Foods. For example, last year it opened a smaller store, Amazon Grocery, at a Whole Foods location in Chicago.
Buechel, who will report to Herrington, is essentially succeeding Tony Hoggett, who left Amazon last October to work for Wonder, a food delivery startup.
Grocery progress
Herrington outlined some of Amazon's grocery initiatives in his memo about Buechel's appointment.
"We’ve taken steps to integrate our huge grocery selection across our broader logistics network, and create a more seamless experience for customers, especially Prime members," Herrington said.
The company is getting "great feedback on our new and redesigned Amazon Fresh stores," according to Herrington.
"We’re also excited by new experiments, like in Phoenix, where customers can shop tens of thousands of grocery items — including fresh groceries — alongside millions of Amazon.com products, and have them delivered, together, in hours," he said.