Amazon's Acquisition Of Whole Foods Has One Notable Casualty: Blue Apron's IPO Plans

Blue Apron, a meal kit delivery service, had planned to file an initial public offering, but the company may be reconsidering its plans Friday following Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s proposed acquisition of organic grocer Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM).

Blue Apron, a unicorn valued at around $2 billion in the private market, specializes delivering to customers farm-fresh items — as does Whole Foods, CNBC noted. In fact, more than two-thirds of Whole Foods' business is in fresh foods, and now the organic grocer chain could be taken over by Amazon, which boasts nearly infinite resources and more importantly, nearly infinite consumer data.

Amazon even owns proprietary technology that can grade a strawberry better than humans. How can a comparatively small $2 billion company like Blue Apron compete with Amazon?

Some may be quick to point out that Blue Apron is a food delivery company and Whole Foods is a grocery retail company so they don't directly compete with each other.

But under Amazon's control, Whole Foods may very well turn into a food delivery company itself, which would place it in direct competition with Blue Apron.

Bottom line, a company the size of Blue Apron going up against Amazon's "unending bales" of cash is no small feat, CNBC concluded.

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