Whole Foods Market is looking at taking “multiple sites next year” and has plans to expand its physical store footprint beyond London, Retail Week understands.

Whole Foods Market Kings Road bakery

Source: Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods opened its first new store since 2014 on King’s Road, London, last March

A source close to the business told Retail Week that the Amazon-owned upmarket grocer had selected multiple sites for 2027, to build on a strong year of store openings in 2026.

The source also said the retailer was looking at opportunities outside of London again, and that its supply chain and logistics were better set up now to make a regional store estate profitable. 

“They used to send a truck with products from warehouses in London up to one of the stores, and then they’d come back empty,” they said. “It didn’t make fiscal sense. The supply chain and logistics are in a much better place [now]. More sophisticated.” 

The retailer previously had stores outside of London but the last two – in Giffnock, Scotland, and Cheltenham, Gloucestershire – were shuttered in November 2017, just months after Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon. 

It comes as Whole Foods is ramping up for its most ambitious physical store expansion drive in over a decade. The retailer opened its first new store since 2014 on King’s Road in Chelsea last March. It was named best new large store at the Retail Week Awards last month.

The first of six new smaller-format stores is set to open in Angel, north London, on April 2. The other London locations due to open in 2026 are Liverpool Street, Notting Hill Gate, Wood Wharf, Monument and St James, all due to be open and trading by June 11. 

Only one of the six new stores is not located in a former Amazon Fresh site. The source said Whole Foods was given first right of refusal on Amazon’s 19 former UK stores, but only settled on taking five. 

Tesco snapped up a further five of the former Fresh stores, as part of its push to open 70 more Express stores before March 2027. 

Despite the flurry of new store openings, Whole Foods Market’s UK losses deepened in its last set of results for the year to December 31, 2024. Pre-tax losses hit £20m, while sales fell to £86.4m over the same period.

During the period, the retailer also closed two London stores in Fulham and Richmond. 

Topics