Natural and organic grocery is entering a new growth cycle, marked by specialty players pushing into new geographies, premium grocers expanding into urban markets, and big-box retailers treating wellness as a core platform rather than a niche aisle. In 2025, fresh-format grocers posted the strongest…
Amazon’s announcement that it will close all its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores may sound, at first glance, like a retreat from grocery. More broadly, it’s perhaps better understood as a strategic refocus toward where Amazon is most differentiated, and an acknowledgment of how…
If you ask Canadian food lovers to describe Farm Boy, you’ll hear a familiar line: “It’s like if Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s had a baby.” They’re not wrong. On a recent visit to a Farm Boy at Wellington Place in Toronto we can report that…
As food prices continue to rise, shoppers in Chicago are feeling the squeeze. McMillanDoolittle Director Amanda Lai joined NPR’s Chicago affiliate, WBEZ, on Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons for a recent segment exploring how consumers are adapting to grocery inflation and what it means for the…
Amazon recently opened its first small-format grocery store, Amazon Grocery, in Downtown Chicago. The 3,800-square-foot location offers a streamlined, 3,500 SKU assortment of convenience and grocery basics. The first-of-its-kind concept is located on the ground floor of the One Chicago building at 3 W. Chicago…
Whole Foods opened the doors of its highly anticipated, small format Daily Shop concept in the Upper East Side of New York last week. Located at 1175 Third Avenue, the 9,100 square foot store offers grocery essentials to the Lenox Hill neighborhood, focusing on private…
Whole Foods Market announced plans to introduce a new “quick-shop store format” named Whole Foods Daily Shop, with the first location slated to open later this year on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Ranging between 7,000-14,000 square feet in size, the new small format…
Wegmans opened its first Manhattan store to much fanfare from the island’s residents late this fall. The 87,500 square foot store, located at Astor Place in the former Kmart space, offers robust grab-and-go options alongside a traditional grocery assortment. The store will soon feature a…
This is the second part of a two-part blog series covering the Kroger-Albertsons merger and associated sale to C&S Wholesale Grocers. Check out part one here, which covers what the acquisitions would mean for the companies involved and how it would impact the broader grocery…
This is the first part of a two-part blog series covering the Kroger-Albertsons merger and associated sale to C&S Wholesale Grocers. Check back next week for the second part of the series covering a local perspective on how these deals could impact consumers in the…
