Mill’s new partnership with Amazon and Whole Foods Market is not a simple vendor contract, it is the product of years of strategic positioning around food waste, grocery operations, and data. The food waste startup has managed to plug itself into one of the most scrutinized retail ecosystems in the world, turning a niche sustainability tool into core infrastructure for how stores handle scraps. To understand how Mill landed the Amazon and Whole Foods deal, I need to trace the path from Amazon’s original grocery bet to the pilots, politics, and product decisions that convinced executives to put Mill’s bins at the center of store operations.
From $13.7 billion bet to food waste laboratory
Amazon’s decision to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion created the platform that Mill is now building on. The acquisition gave Amazon an instant national grocery footprint and a test bed for physical retail experiments that ranged from Prime discounts to cashierless technology, all layered on top of a premium brand that had been built by Whole Foods Market’s founder and leadership team long before the sale. The deal, which stunned markets at the time, was framed as a way for Amazon to blend its logistics and data capabilities with a chain that already knew how to sell fresh food, and that context is crucial for understanding why a food waste startup would later find such a receptive audience inside the combined company, as reported in detail on the $13.7 billion transaction.
Before the acquisition, Whole Food had already been wrestling with the economics of perishables, store labor, and sustainability, while Amazon was still largely an online retailer with limited grocery presence. Entering the grocery category presented Amazon with a large opportunity to buy into a physical store presence, essentially the reverse of Walma expanding from stores into e-commerce, and it also exposed Amazon to the messy realities of shrink, spoilage, and regulatory pressure around waste. Analysts at the time noted that entering the grocery category presented Amazon with a large opportunity to buy into a physical store presence and to tap one of traditional retailers’ remaining areas of growth, a dynamic that set the stage for later investments in in-store smart shopping carts and other technology described in coverage of Amazon and Whole Foods Market.
Why Amazon’s grocery strategy made room for Mill
Once Amazon owned Whole Foods Market, the company needed ways to differentiate its grocery offering beyond price and selection, especially as competitors copied its online ordering and delivery models. Food waste emerged as a natural frontier, both because it is a major cost center in fresh food retail and because customers increasingly expect visible sustainability efforts in stores. Entering the grocery category presented Amazon with a large opportunity to buy into a physical store presence, but it also forced the company to confront the operational inefficiencies that come with managing produce, meat, and prepared foods, a challenge that made specialized waste technology more attractive over time, as explored in analysis of Amazon’s grocery expansion.
At the same time, Amazon’s culture of experimentation meant that any solution had to be more than a feel-good sustainability gesture, it needed to generate data, integrate with existing systems, and scale across hundreds of locations. That is where Mill’s pitch fit neatly into the strategy: the company was not just offering bins, it was offering a sensor-rich platform that could quantify waste streams, inform ordering decisions, and eventually tie into supply chains, including Whole Foods’ private label egg suppliers. In that sense, the Mill deal is a continuation of the same logic that drove Amazon to test in-store smart shopping carts and other connected devices in its grocery aisles, a pattern that was already visible when observers described how the hope was that Amazon could bring its technology to bear on in-store smart shopping carts.
Mill’s evolution from household gadget to enterprise tool
Mill did not start as an enterprise vendor, it began with a consumer product that turned household food scraps into a dry material that could be repurposed, positioning itself as a cleaner alternative to countertop composting. That early focus on households gave the company a base of hardware, software, and user data, but it also limited its impact to individual kitchens. According to co-founder and CEO Matt Rogers, the shift toward working with large organizations like Amazon and Whole Foods Market was a deliberate move to scale the impact of the technology beyond homes, a pivot that is described in coverage that notes how Mill may have started with households a few years ago before its leadership began targeting bigger partners, as detailed in reporting that credits Image Credits and Mill CEO Matt Rogers.
That evolution required Mill to rethink its product for the back-of-house environment of a grocery store, where staff move quickly, volumes are high, and any new process must slot into existing workflows. Rogers has described the company’s approach as “kind of our enterprise sales strategy,” one that involves conversations with senior leaders but also deep engagement with the people who will actually use the equipment every day. In those discussions, Mill emphasized not only the environmental benefits but also the potential for artificial intelligence to analyze waste patterns and help stores adjust ordering and merchandising, a point underscored when Rogers said that AI is a huge enabler in the context of the company’s enterprise push, as captured in reporting that highlights the WAITLIST NOW remarks from Rogers.
Inside the pilots that convinced Whole Foods
Before any chain-wide commitment, Whole Foods needed proof that Mill’s technology could survive the grind of daily store operations and deliver measurable benefits. The company and Mill ran pilots that placed the startup’s sensor-laden bins in select locations, tracking how much food waste was captured, how staff interacted with the equipment, and whether the resulting material could be reliably turned into animal feed. Those tests were not just technical trials, they were political exercises inside a large organization, requiring buy-in from store managers, sustainability teams, and supply chain leaders who would eventually have to coordinate with Whole Foods’ private label egg suppliers to close the loop between scraps and feed, as described in coverage of how food waste startup Mill said it would work with Whole Foods and its private label egg suppliers.
The results of those pilots helped answer the core questions that any retailer would ask: would the bins slow down staff, would they break, and would they actually reduce waste costs or just move them around? According to people familiar with the process, the pilots showed that Mill’s system could be integrated into back-of-house routines without major disruption, and that the data generated by the sensors could highlight patterns like overproduction of certain prepared foods or consistent spoilage in specific categories. Those insights, combined with the prospect of turning what had been a disposal expense into a feed input, were central to why Whole Foods said yes to Mill’s Waste Tech Deal, a decision that was later unpacked in analysis under the banner of Why Whole Foods Said Yes.
The structure of the Amazon and Whole Foods rollout
Once the pilots proved out, Mill and Amazon structured a commercial agreement that would see the technology deployed across Whole Foods Market stores on a defined timeline. Starting in 2027, fruit and vegetable scraps generated in back-of-house operations will be processed by Mill’s technology on site, turning them into a stable material that can be transported and used as an ingredient in chicken feed. The companies have described this as an industry-first food waste innovation at Whole Foods Market stores, with Mill and Amazon teaming up to coordinate the deployment of this technology across the chain in a way that aligns with existing logistics and sustainability goals, a plan that was outlined when Mill and Amazon team up was first announced.
The rollout is not just about installing hardware, it is about integrating Mill’s system into Amazon’s broader grocery strategy, including how Whole Foods tracks inventory, manages supplier relationships, and reports on environmental impact. Beginning in 2027, Amazon will deploy on-site food waste conversion technology in Whole Foods locations so that food scraps can be transformed into chicken feed in-store, a move that executives have framed as benefiting customers, communities, and the environment. That framing reflects Amazon’s desire to show that its $13.7 billion grocery bet is evolving into a platform for circular economy experiments, a narrative that was reinforced when observers noted that beginning in 2027 Amazon would transform food scraps into chicken feed in-store at Whole Foods locations.
How the 2017 acquisition shaped the deal dynamics
The way Amazon handled its original purchase of Whole Foods Market helps explain how a relatively young startup like Mill could negotiate a complex, multi-year deployment with the combined company. On June 16, 2017, Amazon.com, Inc. announced from Seattle, Wash and Austin, Texas that it would acquire Whole Foods Market, Inc., including the company’s net debt, in a transaction that required careful financing and regulatory navigation. That deal involved bridge funding and advisory work from major financial institutions, and it signaled that Amazon was willing to move quickly and decisively when it saw a strategic fit, a pattern that would later influence how it evaluated and approved large-scale technology partnerships like the one with Mill, as chronicled in accounts of how Amazon to acquire Whole Foods Market unfolded.
Behind the scenes, the 2017 acquisition came together through a series of conversations between Amazon and Whole Foods leadership, culminating in an offer that followed several follow up conversations and internal deliberations. On June, Amazon, Inc stunned the financial world with its move, and the firm that advised on the deal also provided bridge funding, illustrating how Amazon leverages external partners when it pursues transformative transactions. Those same instincts, to combine internal conviction with external expertise, are visible in the Mill agreement, which required Amazon to trust a specialized partner with a critical piece of its in-store operations, a dynamic that echoes the way the company previously relied on advisers after two weeks of due diligence and financing work involving Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as described in historical accounts of Amazon, Inc and the Whole Foods acquisition.
Why Whole Foods said yes to Mill’s Waste Tech Deal
From Whole Foods’ perspective, agreeing to Mill’s Waste Tech Deal was about more than optics, it was about aligning a sustainability initiative with the brand’s long-standing identity and operational needs. The chain has built its reputation on organic produce, animal welfare standards, and environmental messaging, but it also faces the same margin pressures as any grocer, especially in fresh categories where shrink can erode profits. By installing smart food waste bins from Mill starting in 2027, Whole Foods signaled that it sees value in a system that can both reduce waste and generate actionable data, a calculation that was central to the narrative around Mill Seals Waste Tech Deal With Amazon And Whole Foods and the section titled Why Whole Foods Said Yes to Mill’s Waste Tech Deal, which emphasized the role of internal champions who worked on the pilots and pushed for broader adoption, as detailed in the analysis of Why Whole Foods Said Yes.
There was also a strategic branding angle: by turning food scraps into chicken feed that can support Whole Foods’ private label egg suppliers, the company can tell a closed-loop story that resonates with its core shoppers. That narrative differentiates Whole Foods from competitors that might simply send waste to landfills or composting facilities, and it gives store teams a tangible example of sustainability in action. The AI capabilities embedded in Mill’s system, which analyze sensor data from the bins, add another layer of appeal by promising continuous improvement rather than a one-off equipment upgrade, a point that was highlighted when commentators noted that The AI component of Mill’s platform was a key reason the food-waste startup Mill recently signed a high-profile deal with Amazon and Whole Foods that puts its sensor-laden bins at the center of grocery operations, as described in coverage of Mill, Amazon and Whole Foods.
What the deal reveals about Amazon’s next retail chapter
Looking at the Mill partnership in the context of Amazon’s broader history, it fits a pattern in which the company uses one major acquisition as a platform for a series of smaller, targeted bets. The closest comparison may be the tech giant’s 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods, which at $14 billion was the last Amazon deal of that scale until its move on MGM, and which has since served as a proving ground for everything from cashierless checkout to Prime-linked discounts. Observers have noted that the Whole Foods acquisition remains a key reference point when evaluating how Amazon will run other large assets, including MGM, and that the grocery chain continues to be a laboratory for experiments that may later roll out elsewhere in the portfolio, a dynamic that was highlighted when analysts said the closest comparison for Amazon’s MGM purchase might be its earlier move on Whole Foods and Amazon.
In that light, the Mill deal is not just about food waste, it is a signal of how Amazon thinks about the next phase of its retail operations, one in which sustainability, data, and supply chain integration are tightly linked. If the partnership succeeds, it could become a template for similar arrangements in other parts of Amazon’s empire, from Amazon Fresh stores to distribution centers that handle perishable goods. The fact that the agreement emerged from a series of structured conversations, pilots, and executive-level negotiations mirrors the way Amazon’s $13.7B acquisition of Whole Foods came together after several follow up conversations between the two firms, a process that was later dissected in accounts of how Amazon and Whole Foods structured their original deal.
The stakes for Mill and the wider grocery industry
For Mill, landing Amazon and Whole Foods is a validation of its strategy to move from household gadgets into enterprise infrastructure, but it also raises the stakes considerably. The company now has to deliver reliable performance across a large, geographically dispersed store base, while also proving that its AI and sensor capabilities can generate the kind of insights that justify the investment. Success could open doors with other retailers that are watching closely, especially as regulators and investors put more pressure on companies to reduce food waste and report on their environmental impact, a trend that aligns with the way entering the grocery category presented Amazon with a large opportunity to buy into a physical store presence and to address retailers’ remaining areas of growth, as noted in analysis of Amazon’s grocery strategy.
For the wider grocery industry, the partnership is a test of whether high-tech waste solutions can move from pilot projects to standard practice. If Mill’s bins and software demonstrate clear financial and operational benefits at Whole Foods Market, competitors may feel compelled to adopt similar systems or risk being seen as laggards on both efficiency and sustainability. Starting in 2027, fruit and vegetable scraps at Whole Foods will be processed by Mill’s technology, and that timeline gives rivals a window to evaluate their own options before the model becomes entrenched, a shift that was underscored when reports detailed how Starting in 2027, Mill will be embedded in Whole Foods’ back-of-house operations.
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