CHICAGO, January 28, 2026 — Amazon is overhauling its strategy for taking a bigger bite of convenience stores’ ready-to-eat food business.
The e-commerce giant announced Tuesday that it will close its high-tech Amazon Go c-stores stores to concentrate on a new grab-and-go retail concept called Whole Foods Market Daily Shop. The stores will specialize in ready-to-eat foods, coffee, and “everyday essentials,” according to the retailer.
Five units are currently open. Their menus include packaged meals, entree salads, sandwiches, baked items, and flat breads. The best-selling item is rotisserie chicken, Amazon revealed.
It plans to add five more stores in 2026.
Amazon did not reveal whether the outlets sport the Just Walk Out technology that was the foundation of Amazon Go. Customers could select heat-and-eat and ready-to-eat items off shelves, along with the sorts of packaged foods that can readily be found in c-stores, and just exit the facilities. High-tech photo scanners recorded the transactions and billed customers online.
The push behind Whole Foods Market Daily Shop is part of a major realignment of Amazon’s strategy to capture more of Americans’ shopping dollars.
In addition to building more of the new c-stores, the company intends to open supercenters that bring together the wide array of the household goods Amazon sells online with the grocery arrays of Whole Foods Market, which Amazon owns. The description aired by the company suggests the outlets will resemble the big-box stores of Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s.
Amazon said it will continue to develop its newest grocery and food delivery option, Amazon Now, which promises to get items ordered online to the customer’s door within 30 minutes.
The company was less sanguine about another new venture, supermarkets bearing the Amazon brand name instead of Whole Foods signage. The retailer said the venture has generated “encouraging signals,” but “we haven't yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion.”
Additional brick-and-mortar ventures will be introduced in the years to come, said Amazon, a company that began as an online book seller. It now ranks as one of the world’s largest retailers.
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.