Whole Foods Market CEO Named VP of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores

Worldwide Amazon Stores CEO Doug Herrington has revealed that Whole Foods Market (WFM) CEO Jason Buechel will take on an expanded responsibility. Buechel has been named VP of Worldwide Grocery Stores (WWGS) while maintaining his current role at Whole Foods.

Buechel has been with Whole Foods since 2013. Prior to his role as CEO, he was COO, providing operational leadership over all Whole Foods physical stores and overseeing the company’s technology, supply chain and distribution, store real estate and design, and HR functions.

In a message to the company revealing Buechel's expanded role, Herrington wrote, “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 WFM achieve record sales growth and expand to over 535 locations.”

Since creating a single WWGS organization in 2022, Amazon has also made progress in its vision to make grocery shopping simpler, faster and more affordable for customers. “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,” wrote Herrington. “This work will continue under Jason’s leadership. I am incredibly energized by our momentum in grocery. Our new Grocery Subscription is getting fantastic response from customers. We continue to be focused on great selection and value at Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go. We’re getting great feedback on our new and redesigned Amazon Fresh stores. 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.”

In a LinkedIn post, Buechel wrote: "I’m truly humbled by the opportunity to serve as the new leader of Worldwide Grocery Stores at Amazon. This expanded responsibility gives me an opportunity to look after the collective grocery offering across Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go and Grocery Partnerships ... I’ve never been more excited about the work Amazon is doing to improve the grocery shopping experience for customers and can’t wait to dig in further. ... We still have more work in front of us, but I’m energized by our progress to date and excited about the continued invention that’s ahead."

Buechel will join the Amazon’s Stores Leadership Team, reporting to Herrington. Claire Peters will continue in her role leading Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go and Grocery Partnerships, and Anand Varadarajan will continue to lead all product and technology for WWGS. Both will report to Buechel moving forward.

Whole Foods Market serves customers in more than 530 stores across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The Austin, Texas-based grocer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Seattle-based Amazon, which is No. 2 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2024 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. Both Whole Foods and Amazon were named among PG’s Retailers of the Century.