As a frequent consumer of Whole Foods products (truly nothing beats the grind your own almond butter station or the brand new mac and cheese bar), I was hyped to hear that they were reducing their prices after Amazon acquired it. Sadly, the Whole Foods price cut may have just been a stunt, Business Insider reports.
Yes, prices did drop in the immediate aftermath of the Whole Foods-Amazon deal, but it may have just been a temporary gimmick to increase sales. It worked, by the way. Bloomberg reports that shoppers have increased by 33 percent since the Amazon deal in August. And according to The Washington Post, Gordon Haskett, a research firm that surveyed 110 items in a New Jersey Whole Foods location over a five-week period, found that prices only dropped by an average of 1.2 percent. Some frozen foods actually increased in prices.
I seriously feel cheated by this revelation because I was expecting to spend a bit less than a whole paycheck at the notoriously expensive grocery store. Organic avocados have actually increased in price since the Amazon deal, so there goes my avocado toast (or my house, if you believe the millennial critiques).
Basically, these Amazon driven Whole Foods price cuts were only a temporary thing to increase sales and customer traffic in the pricy grocery store. This news will sadly not stop me from shopping at Whole Foods because I gotta get my ~whole foods~, but I’m feeling pretty attacked rn. It’s too late now to say sorry, Whole Foods.