Amazon is pivoting its grocery operations in the UK, announcing that it will close 14 of its Amazon Fresh stores in the country. The remaining five Amazon Fresh locations in the UK will be converted to the Whole Foods Market brand. Rather than the brick and mortar shops, Amazon said it will focus on online grocery deliveries within the region. In 2026, the company said it expects to add perishables to its Same-Day Delivery orders for UK customers, which was just introduced in the US last month.
The move echoes a similar contraction in 2023, where Amazon said it would shutter both some Fresh supermarkets and some Go convenience stores. Many of these shops highlighted the Just Walk Out tech from Amazon, which it introduced in the US in 2018 and in the UK in 2021. Just Walk Out eliminated cashiers in those stores and instead charged customers by using a network of cameras, sensors and human observers checking video feeds to calculate the tab for a person’s purchase and then charge them afterwards. However, the approach yielded concerns around cost, accuracy and privacy. Amazon stopped using Just Walk Out in its US Fresh stores last year.
Update, September 23, 2025, 5:55PM ET: Revised to correct a misstatement about Amazon’s current use of Just Walk Out in the US.
