Amazon Enables Local Whole Foods Customers With Free 2-Hour Prime Delivery

Amazon will deliver Whole Foods products to some Bay Area zip codes for free in two hours or less, the online shopping mega corporation announced today. To qualify for free delivery, orders must be $35 or more and customers must be Amazon Prime members — a $99 yearly membership program favored by delivery-addicted shut-ins in the Bay Area and beyond.

Amazon’s Prime Now service from Whole Foods is the latest change to the high-end organic grocery chain since Amazon purchased it last summer for $13.7 billion. The e-commerce company already operates Prime Now Whole Foods delivery in Dallas and Austin, Texas, Cincinatti, Ohio, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. To accommodate more delivery orders, Local SF Whole Foods Markets such as a location on Market and Dolores Streets have already restructured their store layouts. That store includes an aisle area for personal grocery shoppers to assemble online orders and stock fridges with packed bags.

So far in the Bay Area, Whole Foods has offered delivery through SF-based shopping and delivery platform Instacart. But a seemingly close-knit deal between Whole Foods and Instart was apparently not as exclusive as previously believed. Instacart’s work with Whole Foods will continue, but the service’s reign over the store’s aisles is definitely jeopardized by the new Prime Now delivery option.

Prime Now delivery from Whole Foods is available daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. And if customers need those Kind Bars, organic hass avocados, and beer and wine (also offered) even faster, they can pay $7.99 for one-hour delivery.

• Amazon is bringing free Whole Foods delivery to Prime members in San Francisco and Atlanta [Recode]