Whole Foods and Instacart announced earlier this month that the two companies have “mutually agreed” to end their delivery services partnership, effective May 15. As a result, 56 Philadelphia-area workers have been laid off.
The end of the Whole Foods – Instacart relationship did not come as a surprise to industry analysts, many of whom predicted the change since Amazon purchased Whole Foods in 2017. Whole Foods currently offers Prime Now, a one- and two-hour delivery service in more than 60 U.S. cities, including Philadelphia.
Instacart remains a strong presence in the Philadelphia market, as it has relationships with Reading Terminal Market, CVS, Aldi, Sprouts Farmers Market, Sam’s Club, Wegmans, Acme, and Costco. Overall, the company is in 5,500 cities and delivers from nearly 20,000 stores.
“The U.S. is nearly a $1 trillion grocery market, and last year we saw almost every major grocer in North America bring their delivery business online in a significant way,” said Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta in a statement last year. “We believe we’re in the early stages of a massive shift in the way people buy groceries, and we expect that one in five Americans will be shopping for their groceries online in the next five years.”