In January 2026, Amazon and Whole Foods Market enacted a major structural realignment by formally consolidating their separate private label divisions into a single, unified Worldwide Grocery Private Brands business. Led by Jen Coccaro, a nine-year Whole Foods Market veteran, this newly integrated organization brings five distinct corporate brands – Amazon Saver, Amazon Grocery, 365 by Whole Foods Market, Whole Foods Market, and Whole Foods Market Kitchens – under a centralized leadership structure.
The strategic move is designed to merge Whole Foods Market’s historical expertise in food quality, strict sustainability, and animal welfare standards with Amazon’s unmatched global tech infrastructure, rapid operational speed, and massive physical and digital scale.
In a fireside chat with ECRM SVP of Retail Wayne Bennett during ECRM’s Private Label Sessions, Coccaro detailed the intricate dynamics of managing this high-profile integration. While Whole Foods Market’s private brands represent highly mature, established market leaders focused on optimizing historical consumer trust, the proprietary Amazon grocery brands are operating in an agile, fast-paced “builder mode” requiring immediate scale.
For the commercial supplier community, this operational shift represents a major unlock of volume opportunities, establishing a streamlined single point of contact per category across all five core brands. However, it also introduces rigorous new requirements for product development and packaging design optimized for an omnichannel marketplace.
From developing e-commerce-resilient containers that reduce landfill waste to collaborating on cost transparency and pioneering regenerative agriculture, Coccaro outlines a clear roadmap for how forward-thinking suppliers can align with retail’s most powerful cross-channel grocery engine.
A new, integrated private brands group
ECRM: You recently transitioned from leading the Whole Body beauty and wellness sector and the Meat and Seafood division to heading this newly integrated group called Worldwide Owned Brands. Can you share with us a little bit about what this group is, and how you are applying your past experiences and learning to this new role?
Coccaro: In January of this year, we created this integrated worldwide grocery private brands business. As you mentioned, we brought together our Amazon Saver and our Amazon Grocery brands, which were previously managed by their own independent team, and our Whole Foods Market brands, which were managed by an entirely separate team. We brought everyone together into one big team, which has been incredibly exciting , but as you can imagine, it represents a massive merger of two really dynamic and very different businesses.
Personally, I came to this position through Whole Foods Market, which I joined nine years ago, transitioning over from the apparel industry – which was a substantial professional pivot. During my tenure, I led our Whole Body business, and I also built and led our local and emerging brands team, which includes our Forager function. Additionally, I established a corporate function called Strategic Partnerships and Negotiation.
After performing those roles for a number of years, I transitioned last January to lead our Meat and Seafood business, which was a major pivot into highly perishable commodities. Spending a year immersing myself in the nuances of perishables and supply chain dynamics provided immense perspective before stepping into this comprehensive role in January. Private brands feel like home to me. My diverse background across supply chain management, commodity sourcing, small emerging brands, contract negotiations, and deep supplier partnerships has enabled me to see the entire retail landscape clearly and provide strong, strategic support for my team.
ECRM: Given that you are now bridging the culture of Whole Foods Market as a traditional grocer and Amazon as a global technology leader, how do those cultures come together on a day-to-day basis?
Coccaro: There is honestly no typical day; the environment is exceptionally dynamic. What makes this integration fascinating is the stark operational difference between the portfolios. Our Whole Foods Market private brands are highly mature, so that side of the business is heavily focused on maximizing and scaling what has already been working successfully for many years. Conversely, the Amazon Saver and Amazon Grocery brands are still relatively nascent, meaning that team is operating in a fast-paced, high-energy builder mode.
Managing the dynamic of maximizing an established, multi-decade business while simultaneously constructing an entirely new brand ecosystem – all in the middle of a massive cultural integration – is a substantial task. Right now, I spend a significant portion of my time focused on building my team, aligning our cultures, and supporting them through entirely new ways of working.
We are actively building new technological tools, evaluating our operational pipelines to increase speed-to-market, and beginning to invest heavily in supplier partnerships. There is a tremendous amount of fundamental work ahead as we chart this new territory for both organizations.
ECRM: For the benefit of the audience who may not know the full scope of your newly integrated group, could you outline the specific brands that currently make up your private brand portfolio?
Coccaro: There are five core brands that we work very hard on within our portfolio:
- Amazon Saver: Our no-frills value brand designed to deliver core staples at highly competitive, entry-level price points.
- Amazon Grocery: This brand focuses on familiar, everyday household favorites, offering trusted quality and accessibility at great prices.
- 365 by Whole Foods Market: This is our cornerstone better-for-you and organic offerings brand, centering heavily on natural ingredient profiles at accessible prices.
- Whole Foods Market: A trend- and culinary-forward brand that acts as the “tip of the spear” for cutting-edge product innovation and unique flavor profiles.
- Whole Foods Market Kitchens: Operating primarily around the store’s fresh perimeter – including bakery, meat, and fresh prepared foods – delivering culinary-forward daily staples and innovative meal solutions.
Looking through an omni-channel lens
ECRM: You noted that you are starting to look at owned brands through the lens of a true omnichannel experience. Can you share a bit more about that focus and your broader thinking around cross-channel retail?
Coccaro: Achieving a seamless omnichannel experience is absolutely critical for long-term survival; any modern retailer not deeply focused on an omnichannel business model will face a very swift decline. Amazon remains incredibly bullish on the grocery sector. Amazon is currently the second-largest retailer in the United States, and we are experiencing transformational growth within our digital commerce channels. To capitalize on this momentum, we are investing heavily in our digital infrastructure. For instance, we recently added highly perishable items to our same-day delivery online services, and we are seeing exceptional customer response.
At the exact same time, we are aggressively expanding our physical footprint by growing our pipeline of brick-and-mortar Whole Foods Market stores. We opened 16 new Whole Foods Market locations last year, and we currently possess an active development pipeline of over one hundred future stores. This physical expansion includes growing internationally, particularly within the United Kingdom, where we opened two new brick-and-mortar stores just within the last month.
Furthermore, our international omni-channel footprint is extending through digital partnerships; we officially launched our 365 by Whole Foods Market brand online in Singapore last year via a digital commerce platform. There is rapid growth across every single channel and retail format, which we are incredibly excited to build upon.
ECRM: Regarding digital shoppers versus physical in-aisle shoppers, how do their behaviors differ when interacting with private brands, and does that consumer data influence which specific products your team decides to fast-track for development?
Coccaro: Interestingly, we do not fast-track product development based strictly on the purchasing channel. Our overriding mission is to deliver a completely seamless customer experience from initial concept to the final consumer, regardless of the channel or shopping format. Where you really observe diversity in customer behavior between online and physical stores is not the product itself, but the specific shopping “mission”.
Online consumers predominantly engage in quick, functional fill-in shopping trips. These orders typically consist of four to 10 items – perhaps an individual forgot a single ingredient for a specific recipe, or they are purchasing a routine item, like Poppi soda, to fulfill a weekly household staple. In contrast, when consumers shop in our brick-and-mortar physical stores, we observe much larger shopping baskets and comprehensive, routine weekly trips.
Crucially, the physical aisle drives far higher rates of product discovery, impulse purchasing, and emotional engagement. In our Whole Foods Market stores specifically, we have leaned heavily into expansive, curated seasonal product offerings, and consumer response has been phenomenal. Physical retail allows us to strike a balance between satisfying the standard weekly grocery list and offering customers unexpected, highly innovative culinary experiences.
ECRM: That shift in consumer behavior directly alters requirements for the manufacturing base. Given this omnichannel landscape, what are the new explicit requirements for suppliers regarding ingredients, packaging, and shipping materials?
Coccaro: To successfully deliver a flawless customer experience across all touchpoints, our ultimate goal is to design products that can be sold seamlessly in any channel without modification. Consequently, suppliers must be far more strategic and forward-thinking regarding packaging engineering than ever before. This requirement links directly to total cost transparency, because a tremendous amount of capital is lost when packaging fails to withstand the physical friction of an e-commerce supply chain.
As a concrete example, we frequently encounter packaging defects with liquid products online when those items were engineered exclusively for a traditional physical store shelf. Think of a standard bottle of dish soap: when subjected to the movement of rapid online sorting and fulfillment, caps loosen and structural seals break. To remedy this and ensure the product arrives intact, we are forced to spend extra operational capital adding specialized stickers, manual bubble wrap, or secondary plastic overwraps. This introduces two severe problems: first, it drains capital that we could otherwise pass back to the consumer in the form of retail value ; second, it is highly wasteful. We are fiercely committed to reducing plastic usage and maximizing recyclable packaging, and we do not want to add unnecessary waste into landfills.
We need our suppliers to step up with creative, resilient structural engineering. For example, when creating a multi-pack item, we highly favor suppliers who design the primary packaging to be durable enough to ship safely in its own container without requiring an additional outer cardboard box or plastic overwrap. When consumers receive a box inside a box inside another box, it creates a poor customer experience, and they frequently post pictures on social media asking why there is so much excessive waste. Suppliers must proactively design packaging with the rigorous digital supply chain in mind from day one.
Combining two corporate philosophies
ECRM: Looking closely at the corporate cultures, Amazon is globally recognized for its customer obsession, while Whole Foods Market is anchored by its mission-driven, rigorous quality standards. What unique value does this specific combination create for your industry partners?
Coccaro: The combination of these two corporate philosophies is genuinely revolutionary. When you take the historic expertise in high-quality food sourcing, strict sustainability protocols, animal welfare, and positive environmental practices that Whole Foods Market is famous for, and you marry that with the global scale, operational speed, and advanced data technology of Amazon, you create a truly best-in-class private brands organization.
The way we have structured and organized our unified team means that an industry supplier now deals with a single, dedicated category manager who oversees that specific category across all five distinct brands. Beyond the immense opportunities for commercial scale that our combined volume brings, this integration delivers an elegant, streamlined, and friction-free experience for our supplier partners. Navigating bifurcated corporate teams has been a structural challenge for suppliers ever since the acquisition in 2017. Bringing everything together under one roof simultaneously unlocks a superior customer experience and an optimized supplier relationship.
ECRM: You previously highlighted the Whole Foods Market Annual Trends Report as a critical piece of your broader strategy. Can you explain what the report entails, why it is so highly regarded, and how your integrated team leverages it?
Coccaro: The Annual Trends Report is a flagship corporate initiative that Whole Foods Market has executed successfully for the past several years. It represents a massive, highly collaborative body of work where we compile deep research to execute a major public unveiling and press release outlining the most important upcoming trends spanning food, health, wellness, and consumer lifestyle.
It has become a vital piece of thought leadership not just for consumers, but for the entire grocery industry and our supplier network, as it signals exactly where our product development teams are focusing their creative energy. We dedicate significant corporate resources and intellectual capital to this initiative.
Once finalized, it transforms into an extensive marketing engine that drives content across our social media channels, physical store displays, and digital commerce websites. It serves as an active roadmap for product positioning. For context, we release the report every fall, meaning the 2025 report is fully accessible online now, while our teams are actively finalizing the upcoming 2026 trends.
ECRM: Are there any immediate category opportunities or innovation blind spots on your agenda today where you have an urgent, burning need to expand your pipeline?
Coccaro: Our most immediate, prescient operational need is identifying suppliers who are eager to invest co-strategically with us to grow and scale our nascent Amazon brands. Because the Amazon Grocery and Amazon Saver lines are still early in their lifecycle, we need manufacturing partners who can scale rapidly alongside our accelerating demand.
Beyond that, expanding our seasonal business is a critical pillar of our overarching growth strategy. Our recent expansion of seasonal product lines within the Whole Foods Market brands yielded exceptional commercial results; consumers respond powerfully to limited-time items and fresh, rotating flavor profiles because it creates a compelling sense of purchasing urgency. Additionally, on the Whole Foods Market side, we are perpetually looking to raise the bar on agricultural standards. We have an active need for suppliers operating at scale within the organic and regenerative agriculture sectors. Finally, given the ongoing macroeconomic pressures affecting our entire industry, we highly value diversified suppliers who possess manufacturing capabilities across multiple distinct product categories. Having a partner who can flexibly support us across diverse product lines is a major strategic advantage in the current economic climate.
ECRM: This consolidation sounds like a major development for the industry. What kind of opportunities does this streamlined team create for the supplier community?
Coccaro: This structural change represents an extraordinary opportunity for the supplier community. It is particularly impactful for suppliers who currently work with Whole Foods Market but want to scale their manufacturing to support our growing Amazon brands, or vice versa. There is an immense amount of latent growth potential across our entire portfolio. By streamlining our internal organization, we have made it significantly easier for external suppliers to engage with us. Instead of navigating separate, bifurcated teams as they had to do since the initial acquisition back in 2017, suppliers now have a single, unified point of contact to drive business across all channels.
Advice for suppliers pitching the Worldwide Grocery team
ECRM: You have negotiated across the table from hundreds of suppliers throughout your career. From your current leadership seat, what are the primary elements a supplier must include in a presentation to your team, and what should they avoid?
Coccaro: First and foremost, suppliers must arrive completely prepared, grounded in deep operational data. It is no longer sufficient to simply state what your factory can produce or what you have successfully delivered to other retailers in the past. We require hard, empirical data demonstrating that your business possesses the operational capacity to scale rapidly alongside our volume and reliably support our integrated brand teams. Second, absolute cost transparency is completely critical. We approach supplier relationships as a true partnership, and it is impossible to engineer optimal, cost-efficient solutions or navigate supply chain hurdles together if a supplier hides their true cost structures; transparency breeds collaboration.
In terms of what to avoid, I would emphasize leaving behind rigid, non-collaborative presentation models, and above all, I urge suppliers to bring an abundance of patience. It is incredibly challenging to be a merchant or sourcing manager in the current retail environment; our team has stakeholders approaching us from every conceivable angle. We work tirelessly to remain highly responsive and meet our supplier partners exactly where they are at, but managing the optimization of a massive mature business while simultaneously scaling a nascent digital portfolio means our team has a tremendous number of balls in the air. Patience is a critical virtue as we build this future together.
The future of private brands
ECRM: Looking at this powerful, newly consolidated brand portfolio under your direction, what excites you most about the future of private brands? Is it value, innovation, or something broader?
Coccaro: Private brands have undergone a massive paradigm shift; they have evolved into primary destination drivers for the modern retailer. They are no longer viewed by consumers as merely a cheaper, compromised version of a national brand. Reliable market data now indicates that 60% of consumers will actively choose a specific grocery retailer based entirely on whether that retailer carries an owned private brand they deeply trust.
Furthermore, data proves that customers who consistently purchase private brands exhibit a substantially higher retention rate than those who buy strictly national brands. This dynamic fuels what we call at Amazon the “flywheel effect.” By offering superior private brands, you keep customers consistently returning to your specific channels, deeply engaged with your ecosystem, and growing alongside your business. Private brands are unequivocally the most exciting place to be in retail right now. The growth potential is immense, product innovation is accelerating, and consumers are showing a level of enthusiasm for corporate brands that simply did not exist a decade ago.