Whole Foods’ CEO is betting that Gen Z will be down to fork out more cash for his company’s groceries

• Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel said the grocery chain is listening to the needs of Gen Z.
• He said the company had conducted research to understand “generational differences” between customers.
• Over half of Gen Zers surveyed said they’d pay more for sustainably grown food, he said.

Whole Foods’ CEO has his eye on Gen Z.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance’s “Opening Bid,” Jason Buechel said the company worked with YouGov, a market research company, to try to understand the “generational differences” between customers.

“Over 70% of Gen Z supports climate-friendly agriculture practices,” Buechel told host Brian Sozzi about the survey findings in the interview, released on Tuesday.

“And about 55% were actually willing to pay a higher premium for differentiation in products that are actually helping to support the environment and are sustainable,” he added.

Buechel said consumers don’t often realize that due to the climate crisis, food systems won’t be able to hold up over the next 50 to 100 years. But Gen Z does get it, he added.

“For many of them, it’s going to be in their lifetime that these challenges are sort of seen,” he said.

Buechel added that the grocery chain is committed to protecting food systems, eliminating preservatives from its products, and delivering healthier products to consumers.

Buechel, who took over the top job from Whole Foods cofounder John Mackey in 2022, previously said that he visits Whole Foods at least 14 times a week.

“I pretty much am in the grocery store at least twice a day, every single day,” Buechel told Fortune in a July interview.

Whole Foods has slashed prices several times since Amazon bought it in 2017.

The cost reductions appeared to target Whole Foods’ hefty price tags, which previously led shoppers to refer to the chain as “Whole Paycheck.”

“Amazon let us drop our prices four times,” Mackey said in a June interview with Fortune. “I hardly ever hear the ‘whole paycheck’ narrative any longer — that’s due to Amazon.”

Whole Foods is not the only retail giant tailoring its offerings to suit Gen Z consumers’ needs.

Walmart’s chief technologist, Suresh Kumar, told Fortune this year that the retail giant had conducted market research with business intelligence company Morning Consult to learn more about Gen Z’s shopping preferences.

The research surveyed 2,200 US shoppers to gauge their current and future expectations. According to the research report, 50% of the Gen Z shoppers surveyed wanted a virtual shopping assistant.

The survey also found that more than half of the Gen Zers surveyed said they would like to purchase products in-store but have the goods delivered to their homes.

“This is very, very important,” Kumar told Fortune. “It also ties into some of the things that you find in the report which is immediacy, speed, instant gratification, especially with Gen Z, including my own daughters. These things matter a lot.”

A representative of Whole Foods didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside business hours.