Amazon Missing in the Whole Foods Prime Deployment

Amazon officially left its mark in Whole Foods stores – but not with its name.

Discounts for Amazon Prime members have now been rolled out at all Whole Foods stores across the country. Signage is abundant and immediately apparent. In-store advertising seems to be on every surface imaginable, as evidenced by the recent visit to a Whole Foods store by Business Insider's Hayley Peterson.

One thing missing: the word Amazon. The new offers in Whole Foods are specifically called "main offers" and not "Amazon Prime offers". None of the signs or materials mention the word Amazon, and there is no orange – the usual color of Amazon – because Prime's blue color instead takes on a dominant role. There is yellow, but that's the color that Whole Foods had already used to mark sales.

Even the new Whole Foods app, which customers open to scan a barcode at the checkout to access discounts, says Amazon.

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Amazon has recently refreshed Prime's brand image, abandoning "Amazon" in favor of simplification at Prime. This divorces Prime from Amazon itself, making it rather a kind of membership for all Amazon's offerings, like Whole Foods, and to a lesser extent, the game streaming platform Twitch video.

But the separation could be for another reason, as Amazon becomes a brand more loaded than it was before. Instead of just offering unparalleled customer service and delivering packages reliably, Amazon is also an outrageous successful company that is taking advantage of its position, reported Kate Taylor of Business Insider.

Amazon has criticized for things like opposing the cities to each other in its current second headquarters search, and for refusing to remove NRATV from Prime Video. A study by Policy Matters Ohio in January found that 700 Amazonian state workers were receiving food stamps.

While Amazon is now trying to get its claws around the 25% or so of Whole Foods buyers who are not already members of Prime, not to mention the word "Amazon" could be easier.