By the end of 2019, all of Whole Foods' remaining 365 supermarkets will be converted into regular Whole Foods stores, Yahoo! Finance reports. The news comes a few months after Whole Foods announced they'd stop opening new locations of the smaller stores.
According to The Kitchn, there are only 12 remaining 365 stores across the country. If you're not familiar with these outlets, they're primarily stocked with Whole Foods' 365 brand throughout the store as opposed to other outsourced brands.
Each of the locations—which, on average, are 10-20,000 square feet smaller than a regular Whole Foods store—will undergo a pretty seamless rebranding, which'll include "store signages, product assortments, and back-end distribution," Yahoo! says. It seems as though the process won't disrupt shopping too much for customers and that the stores will remain open throughout the process.
Because of the size discrepancy, though, Yahoo! notes the newly rebranded stores may be missing a few Whole Foods staples when they do re-open. Specifically, there may not be full-service meat counters (and more) in these locations.
Whole Foods has not yet released a statement regarding the news.
