The Amazonization of Whole Foods

It looks like Whole Foods was attempting to out-Amazon Amazon while it was negotiating its sale to the internet retailer because it established a just in time inventory system that is leaving shelves empty of staple foods:

Whole Foods is facing a crush of food shortages in stores that's leading to empty shelves, furious customers, and frustrated employees.

Many customers are blaming Amazon, which bought Whole Foods in August for $13.7 billion. Analysts have speculated that the shortages could be due to a spike in shopper traffic in the wake of the acquisition.

But Whole Foods employees say the problems began before the acquisition. They blame the shortages on a buying system called order-to-shelf that Whole Foods implemented across its stores early last year.

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Order-to-shelf, or OTS, is a tightly controlled system designed to streamline and track product purchases, displays, storage, and sales. Under OTS, employees largely bypass stock rooms and carry products directly from delivery trucks to store shelves. It is meant to help Whole Foods cut costs, better manage inventory, reduce waste, and clear out storage.

But its strict procedures are leading to storewide stocking issues, according to several employees. Angry responses from customers are crushing morale, they say. (Many of the photographs in this story were provided to Business Insider by customers.)

"At my store, we are constantly running out of products in every department, including mine," an assistant department manager of an Illinois Whole Foods told Business Insider. "Regional and upper store management know about this. We all know we are losing sales and pissing off customers. It's not that we don't care — we do. But our hands are tied."

Whole Foods did not respond to several requests for comment on this story. The company's executives have described the changes as cost-saving, and employees acknowledge that they have helped reduce food spoilage in stock rooms.

Let's be clear: this predates the Amazon acquisition, but it seems to correspond with when negotiations likely began.

Either they were trying to make themselves more attractive to Amazon, or they were trying to be more like Amazon, but groceries ain't books or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

H/t Atrios.