Walmart: How America’s Biggest Grocer Is Beating Amazon at Its Own Game

 

Walmart isn’t just winning the price war anymore — it’s winning the battle for America’s food shopper.
After years of being cast as Amazon’s traditional rival, Walmart has become something Amazon still struggles to be: a trusted, food-first digital brand according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

With $276 billion in U.S. grocery sales this year, a remodeled “Store of the Future” network, and record-breaking online delivery growth, Walmart has quietly built the most powerful food retail ecosystem in America.

 

From Underdog to Industry Architect

Five years ago, Walmart was seen as the old guard. Amazon Go was the buzz. Whole Foods was trendy. Analysts predicted digital grocery dominance would belong to Amazon.

But in 2025, the scoreboard looks very different:

·       Walmart controls 31.6% of the U.S. digital grocery market, versus Amazon’s 22.6%.

·       Its store-fulfilled deliveries jumped 50% this year.

·       And grocery now drives 60% of its U.S. revenue, a figure that keeps climbing.

“Walmart turned grocery shopping from a transaction into a digital value experience — and consumers rewarded it with loyalty.”

Walmart’s secret? A strategy built on clarity, consistency, and convenience — not tech theatrics.

 

The Data Driving Walmart’s Rise

·       Fiscal 2025 U.S. grocery revenue: $276 billion, up 12% in two years.

·       Online grocery market share: 31.6% (Amazon trails at 22.6%).

·       E-commerce growth: +26% year-over-year in Q2 FY 2026.

·       Store remodels: More than 1,400 “Stores of the Future” adding expanded fresh departments, better layouts, and smart tech integration.

Walmart’s hybrid model — where physical stores double as fulfillment hubs — is now the envy of retail. Each remodeled location becomes a mini logistics center, powering faster grocery delivery while reinforcing local trust.

 

Fresh, Fast, and Ready to Eat

What’s driving consumer love back to Walmart? Food that fits modern life.

The chain’s Marketside and Fresh & Ready lines now span meal kits, heat-and-eat entrées, and grab-and-go options — quietly pushing Walmart into grocerant territory once owned by restaurants and c-stores.

“Fresh food is Walmart’s new loyalty program,” says The Grocerant Guru®.
“Consumers aren’t just buying groceries — they’re buying convenience, freshness, and time.”

In an inflationary world, that mix of value + immediacy hits the sweet spot.

 

Amazon’s Grocery Headache

Amazon isn’t standing still — but its grocery ambitions are tangled in complexity.

·       Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods together operate around 600 U.S. stores, but growth has stalled.

·       The company is pushing toward a “One Grocery” strategy, integrating Fresh, Whole Foods, and its online marketplace.

·       Same-day perishable delivery now reaches 2,300 cities — yet logistics costs remain punishing.

Amazon’s private-label consolidation and tech experiments haven’t offset one core problem: food retail requires physical proximity and human habit, two things Walmart mastered decades ago.

 

Insights from The Grocerant Guru®

Store-fulfilled delivery is the real innovation.
Walmart’s 4,600 U.S. stores act as last-mile engines. The retailer grew delivery 50% this year — that’s scale Amazon can’t yet match.

1.       Fresh prepared = new premium.
As restaurants raise prices, consumers are shifting spending toward “ready-to-eat retail.” Walmart’s deli, bakery, and fresh-meal upgrades are winning that share.

2.       Omnichannel is no longer optional.
Walmart’s seamless checkout, app integration, and subscription delivery (via Walmart+) make shopping frictionless. Amazon is still piecing its grocery identity together.

 

The Real Story: Walmart Found Its Formula

The takeaway is clear: Walmart’s advantage isn’t just low prices — it’s executional discipline.
While Amazon experiments, Walmart delivers consistency at scale. It’s building consumer trust brick by brick, order by order, and meal by meal.

And in 2025, that trust translates directly into market share.

“In grocery, technology matters — but execution wins. And Walmart is executing like it invented the category.”

 

Challenges Ahead

Even with its momentum, Walmart faces ongoing pressure:

·       Grocery margins remain razor-thin.

·       Rapid expansion of ready-to-eat offerings strains supply chain precision.

·       Amazon’s deeper integration of AI logistics and delivery networks could still shift dynamics.

But for now, Walmart holds the edge — not just as the nation’s top grocer, but as the model for how legacy retail adapts to a digital food future.

For international corporate presentations, educational forums, or keynotes contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.  His extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert and public speaking will leave success clues for all. For more information visit www.GrocerantGuru.com , www.FoodserviceSolutions.us or call    1-253-759-7869

The Grocerant Niche is for Time Starved Flavor Charged Millennials

Millennials in search of food discover are “Time starved yet flavor charged consumers seeking meal components from both traditional and non-traditional retail outlets” according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  

The grocerant niche focus is Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food that can be mixed and matched as meal components customizing a meal for one or a family meal.  Consumer are seeking meal planning that included fresh prepared meal components that are filled with flavor that can be bundled into customized family meals or a personalized meal according to Johnson.

So, it is no surprise that 82.3% of meals assembled and eaten at home for dinner in Q four 2019 include at least one Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat meal component according to Foodservice Solutions® latest grocerant scorecards.  Building a consumer retail food brand today requires a consumer focus, flexibility, and foresight with a fresh flavorful grocerant niche twist.

Cultivating a brand is more important that managing a brand. Brands are dynamic not static. Brands evolve, develop, and grow with/for the consumer according to Johnson.  Identifying distinctive differentiated programs, positioning and consumable’s by day part that reflect the brand, industry trends, consumer preferences with an eye on meal component bundling is a key to success in 2020.

Creating or identifying distinctive differentiated food consumable’s as an entity with identity by day part in the grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat is an art; well understood by the team at Foodservice Solutions® who have been tracking the growth since 1991.  Understanding the unique balance between palate, price, pleasure and the consumer’s drive for qualitative distinctive differentiated new food consumables requires both IQ and EQ. 

The food value proposition equilibrium for the consumer today balances; better for you, flavor, and traditional products all blended into something with a twist.  In industry speak, differentiated does not mean different to the consumer it means familiar. Are you growing top line sales and bottom line profits? Have you considered offering more grocerant niche options?

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a grocerant program assessment, brand, product placement or positioning assistance.  Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson

Battle for Share of Stomach

Better for You Mix & Match Meal Bundling Drives C-store Sales

Success does leave clues and convenience stores ability to expand menu / meal options with salty foods that are ‘better-for-you’ is a key driver driving top-line sales and bottom-line profits according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

According to market research firm Packaged Facts, U.S. demand for salty snacks at the manufacturer level is forecast to grow 3% annually from 2017 to 2022. The simple fact is consumers like salty snacks and consider them great additions to a meal particularly when they have the ‘halo’ of ‘better-for-you’ around them.

Cara Brosius, research analyst of consumer and commercial goods, MarketResearch.com, said demand for salty snacks is growing because of the “snackification” of American diets. …“Most consumers snack multiple times each day, and a growing number are replacing entire meals with snacks or eating snacks with main meals,” 

Johnson stated that most Americans grew up visiting fast food outlets that offered bundled meals that included salty french fries.  Johnson continued consumers like salt and salty foods, that is one of the reasons that 82.3% of all restaurant meals sold in the US are sold at fast food outlets.  

Mix & match meal bundling are hallmarks driving growth within the grocerant niche within every sector of retail food sale’s according to Johnson.  

Once again Johnson reiterated as regular readers know Gen Z and millennials are especially driving growth within the grocerant niche, as they have fast-paced, on-the-go lifestyles that demand portable and ready-to-eat foods and it is how they grew up eating.

In order to appeal to young consumers, it is important to edify your relationship with both Gen Z and Millennials so offering more snacks that provide health benefits, such as added protein and plant-based ingredients that are salty is a sure way to win.

Transparency is important, for example, Kettle Brand potato chips introduced a “Tater Tracker” feature on its website that allows consumers to input the product code on their bag of chips to track the farmer who sourced the potatoes used in that particular bag.

C-stores have the advantage in adding more CPG options from the ‘better-for-you’ category over chain restaurants elevating consumer choice within mix & match meal component bunding options.  Products that are sustainable, local, bold in flavor that reflect the neighborhood around you store are key to garnering incremental customers according to Johnson.

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869

Kwik Trip Targets 7-Eleven with Automation

Regular readers of this blog understand the power of partnerships when it comes to creating new food products.  Many of you have reached out to our Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® for he continues “Looking A Customer Ahead” focus had help place a product or identify, quantify, and qualify a ‘new ideation or positioning opportunity.

Kwit Trip recently built a test kitchen to increase its ability to innovate new menus items as they teamed up with the Partnership for a Healthier America to expand the number of healthy options available to its customers, convenience store chain Kwik Trip Inc. has been working to improve its food and beverage offerings for years now.

Check out one of its latest initiatives, the Fresh Blends smoothie program, was prompted not by focus group testing or executive brainstorming, but rather by a weeknight trip to a Target store in the middle of winter.

"I'm watching people go to Starbucks and get smoothies and frappes when it's that cold outside in Wisconsin," recalled Paul Servais, retail foodservice director at Kwik Trip. "I'm thinking this is for real — we've got to do something with this."

However, being inspired by what he saw at Starbucks didn't mean becoming Starbucks.

"In our Kwik Trip world, we like to do everything self-service," Servais said. This meant the retailer wouldn't launch a barista program just to add smoothies, but the problem was the specific self-serve technology the Kwik Trip team had in mind didn't exist yet.

Servais and his team solved this problem by teaming with Welbilt Inc., which manufactures the machine it uses today, and Beverage Innovations Inc., which creates the drink mixes. Welbilt had already worked with McDonald's on blended cup technology, but that unit involved manual positioning of the cup. Kwik Trip sought a fully automated process.

Technology can drive fresh food sales according to Johnson, Kwit Trips Fresh Blends program provides a simple process for Kwik Trip customers, who only need to use the machine's touchscreen menu to select a drink category, flavor and cup size. Then, after placing the cup in the dispenser chamber, they stand back and watch as ice and smoothie ingredients are dispensed into the cup, the shuttle moves the cup into the blending chamber, and lastly the shuttle returns the cup to the customer for them to take and enjoy.

Joe Knauss, executive chef and director of innovation at Fresh Blends North America Inc., a brand of Beverage Innovations, praises Kwik Trip for being an eager but flexible partner.

"They adopted the program before the machines were even built," Knauss said. "They let me steer the way for what their menu should be." The Fresh Blends menu features a variety of smoothies with 100 percent all-natural ingredients, real fruit and real dairy, but no artificial colors, flavors or high-fructose corn syrup. The blends are kosher certified and made in the United States.  Are you looking a customer ahead?

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.