Today, Amazon opened its 44th US Amazon Fresh location in Pasadena, CA, making it the company’s 18th store in the Golden State.

Amazon Fresh produce section

A full-service grocery retailer, Amazon Fresh is an online and brick-and-mortar chain offering a broad assortment of products from national and local brands as well as produce, meat, seafood, and prepared foods.

Amazon first debuted its Amazon Fresh concept in 2020 with its store in Thousand Oaks, CA, and has been rapidly adding new locations ever since. Currently, the company has stores in California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Washington DC. Most locations have a similar format and are over 25,000 square feet in size.

Kim Kornfeld, PR Manager, Amazon

“Amazon Fresh is a new grocery store, designed from the ground up to offer a seamless grocery shopping experience, whether customers are shopping in-store or online,” said Kim Kornfeld, PR manager at Amazon. “We’ve taken our decades of operations experience to deliver consistently low prices for all, and free, same-day delivery and pick-up for Prime members.”

Amazon Fresh stores offer a full selection of produce—including many organic produce items, the majority of which are sold under the Amazon Fresh and 365 by Whole Foods Market brands. All Amazon Fresh locations also offer organicgirl packaged salads.

“Amazon Fresh is a new grocery store, designed from the ground up to offer a seamless grocery shopping experience, whether customers are shopping in-store or online.” - Kim Kornfeld

While precise products vary by location, Amazon Fresh’s inaugural Woodland Hills store, for example, currently offers over 100 organic produce items, including packaged and precut options. In addition to Amazon Fresh, 365, and organicgirl, some of the other organic produce brands that are available at the Woodland Hills store include Cal-Organic, Sunset, Earthbound Farm, Mighties Kiwi, and Sun Pacific.

Amazon Just Walk Out technology

“Customers shopping Amazon Fresh will find a wide assortment of national brands and high-quality produce, meat, and seafood, as well as a range of delicious prepared foods made fresh in store every day—from fresh-baked bread and made-to-order pizzas, to rotisserie chickens and hot sandwiches like our brisket panini,” said Kornfeld. “Amazon Fresh introduces new ways to make grocery shopping more convenient, including Just Walk Out technology and the Amazon Dash Cart, both of which enable customers to skip the checkout line, and new Alexa features to help customers manage their shopping lists and better navigate the aisles.”

Amazon One palm entry

The Just Walk Out and Dash Cart shopping options are currently available at select Amazon Fresh locations. With Just Walk Out, customers enter the store via an Amazon-linked credit card, their palm (Amazon One), or a QR code on the Amazon app. Once inside the store, they can simply add items to their cart without scanning them, thanks to Amazon’s proprietary technology combining computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. All Just Walk Out produce is sold per item, so no weighing is needed. When done shopping, customers can exit the same way they entered the store (by palm, QR code, or credit card).

“Amazon Fresh introduces new ways to make grocery shopping more convenient, including Just Walk Out technology and the Amazon Dash Cart, both of which enable customers to skip the checkout line, and new Alexa features to help customers manage their shopping lists and better navigate the aisles.” - Kim Kornfeld

Dash Cart, on the other hand, allows customers to shop by grabbing a cart and scanning a QR code on their phone’s Amazon app. They can then scan their desired items using the Dash Cart’s cameras (and built-in scale for produce) and exit the store via the Dash lane. The carts are automatically detected, and shoppers are charged for their items.

“Customers have been really excited about Amazon Fresh stores, noting the low prices, broad grocery selection, and convenient shopping innovations, which have made their shopping experience effortless,” said Kornfeld.

Amazon Dash Cart

When asked if Amazon Fresh plans on expanding its organic produce offerings further, Kornfeld said, “We offer a wide selection of organic offerings today. We’re always listening to customers and evaluating the selection we offer with customer feedback in mind. Our focus is on providing a broad selection—from leading national brands to local favorites to our own products—in order to help customers find anything they may want or need at Amazon Fresh.”

“Customers have been really excited about Amazon Fresh stores, noting the low prices, broad grocery selection, and convenient shopping innovations, which have made their shopping experience effortless.” - Kim Kornfeld

More generally, Amazon Fresh says it plans to keep focusing on innovation to improve the customer experience. “We will continue to obsess over the things our customers care about like low prices, convenience, and great selection, while also working to simplify the online and in-store grocery shopping experience,” Kornfeld shared.