Prices were lowered for Whole Foods’ bananas, large brown eggs, salmon, avocados, baby kale and almond butter, among other groceries. Amazon, the e-commerce giant, plans to give its Amazon Prime members further price savings and other in-store benefits at Whole Foods. A combination of Whole Foods’ lofty prices and inroads by rival supermarkets in selling their own organic and natural foods had slowed Whole Foods’ growth. Whole Foods’ prices “were off-putting to a lot of potential customers and for good reason; a substantial part of the population felt it couldn’t afford to shop at Whole Foods,” Hamrick said. 12:25 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from Kroger, comments from an analyst and details about benefits for Amazon Prime members.

Source: Los Angeles Times August 28, 2017 17:23 UTC