Analyst: Whole Foods price cuts exaggerated

Whole Foods’ well reported price cuts after the Amazon purchase have been more noise than savings, one analyst shows.

Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett Research Advisors, said during a five-week price study looking at 110 SKUs at a New Jersey Whole Foods, he found that overall basket prices trended slightly up from mid-August to late September.

“To put this into some perspective, this degree of decline was far less than the ~25%+ average price cuts made to the list of 15-20 named items, which was well publicized,” he said in a report.

The price study looked at 18 items from the produce department. The total basket ring went from $45.80 on Aug. 21 to $45.50 on Sept. 26. Conventional whole trade bananas dropped a dime, while conventional broccoli dropped 70 cents. Organic avocados also decreased, but conventional blueberries rose $1.

It also noted Amazon Fresh is just beginning to widen its assortment of Whole Foods-branded products, and they found that Amazon’s prices for these items matched those offered in stores.