Christoph Reichwein/dpa via Reuters Connect
Amazon wants its various grocery units to flock together. The company’s grocery boss likens the effort to migratory birds flying in perfect formation.
Whole Foods CEO and Amazon VP of Worldwide Grocery Jason Buechel told employees in June that the company uses a “flying formation” metaphor to describe how its grocery businesses should work together, according to a transcript of the meeting obtained by Business Insider.
He said migratory birds can travel 70% faster when flying in formation, a lesson he wants Amazon’s grocery units to emulate by staying “interconnected” and aligned on “where we’re going and how we’re going to work together.”
Buechel, who runs both Whole Foods and Amazon’s Fresh grocery business, acknowledged that the company’s grocery brands haven’t always operated in sync. Greater integration, he said, is essential if Amazon is to become “the most loved grocer.”
“Over the course of the last several years, all of us have been working together in our own team’s flock, if you will, and while we’ve all been heading in the same direction…we haven’t necessarily been united,” Buechel said. “This work is about how we work smarter together.”
Buechel’s message underscores the integration push he’s been making since taking over Amazon’s grocery division earlier this year.
Amazon plans to integrate Whole Foods’ entire workforce as part of an initiative known as Project Cremini, Business Insider reported earlier this week. Buechel has also merged vendor-management teams and launched a new Whole Foods concept store designed to better tap into Amazon’s grocery inventory.
This year, Buechel also reorganized the grocery leadership team and made cutting through bureaucracy a key focus, in line with a companywide directive from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
Jassy voiced strong backing for Amazon’s grocery business during last month’s earnings call. He said Amazon’s grocery and everyday essentials business brought in more than $100 billion in gross merchandise sales over the past year, and noted that Amazon’s online grocery shoppers buy more often and return twice as frequently as customers purchasing nonperishables.
In an email to Business Insider, Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said the company’s grocery business now reaches more than 150 million customers and offers nearly 3 million grocery and everyday products. Buch added that in the first half of 2025, Amazon’s everyday essentials segment, which includes groceries and household goods, grew almost twice as fast as all other categories in the U.S.
“As we continuously work to make it easier to collaborate and innovate on behalf of our customers, we’re exploring new ways of working across our grocery and everyday essentials business,” Buch said in an email. “These efforts reflect our focus on making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable for customers.”
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