Amazon Fresh opens 4 stores in 1 day

Amazon Fresh appears to have returned to opening new stores in earnest after pressing pause on the grocery concept last year.

The Seattle-based retail giant last week opened four new grocery stores in one day, following its grand openings in Eatontown, N.J., in June and in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights in July.

The four stores that opened on Thursday are in Bensalem, Penn., Roseville, Calif., Lodi, N.J., and Tinley Park, Ill., an Amazon spokesperson said in an email to Supermarket News.

All of the new stores are between 38,000 and 42,000 square feet, and feature a selection of local and regional products, as well as name-brand and private-label grocery items.

Starting wages at the stores range from $15.75 to $16.50.

The openings bring Amazon Fresh’s store count to 49, according to its website, with 19 of those locations in California and 11 in Illinois. Other stores are located in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York.

All of the new locations employ Amazon’s high-tech Dash Carts, which allow shoppers to bag and weigh produce, and checkout by exiting through the store’s Dash Cart lane.

Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery concept in August 2020 in Bellevue, Wash., and had opened about 34 stores during its first two years in business, frequently celebrating more than one grand opening a day.

The openings were met with curiosity as most stores were equipped with the retailer’s “Just Walk Out” technology, which relied on a system of embedded cameras to allow shoppers to buy groceries without pausing to check out.

But those openings slowed and stopped, and property companies last year sued the retailer after a number of planned Fresh stores sat unopened.

In April, Amazon announced it would shelve that technology and would shift its focus to its AI-enabled smart carts.

The move was part of a broader Amazon Fresh reboot, designed to give the stores a warmer, more-human feel.