Don’t Get Too Excited About Whole Foods’ New Smaller Urban Format
So you may have heard that Amazon-owned WHOLE FOODS IS LAUNCHING A NEW, SMALLER FORMAT FOR URBAN SETTINGS, to be called Whole Foods Daily Shop. Ranging from 7K to 14K sq ft, roughly similar to an urban CVS or Walgreens (versus the 40K sq ft average for a traditional Whole Foods), it will feature fresh produce/perishables, prepared foods, prepacked meals, weekly essentials, alcohol and a cafe – but no salad bars or lunch buffets. Meant to cater to harried urbanites, it will be sited in locations convenient to early-morning or after-work commutes. Initially it will not offer pickup or delivery, though that may change. For those who dream of the “15-minute city”, this sounds like really exciting news, and for Whole Foods, it makes sense as a way of capturing incremental demand in submarkets between larger stores. Understand, however, that Daily Shop will first appear in New York City, with “plans to explore wider U.S. expansion”, presumably starting with other tightly-tightly-packed neighborhoods in larger metros like Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago and San Francisco – in other words, settings that already have these kinds of upmarket conveniences and amenities. There’s Westside Market, Garden of Eden and Union Market in New York City; Di Bruno Bros. and GIANT Heirloom Market in Philadelphia; Foxtrot Market in Chicago and Washington, D.C; Bi-Rite Market and Luke’s Local in San Francisco – frankly, in most of these cities, Whole Foods is a bit late to the game at this point. More importantly, Amazon’s efforts thus far with in-store grocery have been somewhat underwhelming. Their flat and uninspired Amazon Go concept, also designed for this purpose, leaves me cold – and evidently, I’m not the only one, with eight of its 28 units shuttered last year. Don’t get me wrong – Amazon is brilliant in so many ways, and I really want this new banner to succeed, as it would give us retail consultants another option in a critical category for our urban clients. But I’m not counting my chickens yet.