Amazon grocery push sinks Kroger, Instacart, delivery stocks

Investing.com -- Kroger (NYSE: KR) stock fell 1.6% Tuesday, while Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) tumbled 5% after Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced plans to double down on its online grocery delivery services and expand Whole Foods Market locations.

The e-commerce giant’s aggressive grocery strategy also dragged down other food delivery stocks, with Uber (NYSE: UBER) dropping 2.5%, DoorDash (NYSE: DASH) falling 1.8%, and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) slipping 1%.

Amazon revealed plans to expand its Same-Day Delivery service for fresh groceries to more communities in 2026, building on what it described as strong customer feedback. The company said perishable grocery sales through this service have grown 40x since January 2025.

Additionally, Amazon announced it will open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years while closing its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores. Some of these locations will be converted to Whole Foods stores.

The Seattle-based tech giant highlighted that it has become one of the top three grocers in the U.S., with over $150 billion in gross sales and more than 150 million customers shopping for groceries each year. Everyday household essentials now represent one out of every three units sold on Amazon.com.

Amazon is also testing Amazon Now, an ultra-fast delivery option that brings thousands of essential items, including fresh food, to customers’ homes in about 30 minutes or less, further intensifying competition in the grocery delivery space.

The company’s expansion of Whole Foods Market Daily Shop, a smaller store format offering grab-and-go meals and everyday essentials, adds another dimension to its growing grocery presence that threatens traditional supermarket chains and delivery platforms alike.

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