The Slow Unveiling: Amazon Fresh On Track To Open In Brookfield

BROOKFIELD, CT — The time for secrecy is over: Crews have completed installing a large Amazon Fresh sign above the entrance to 14 Candlewood Lake Road, leaving little doubt about what business is moving into the vacant building.

Brookfield First Selectwoman Tara Carr confirmed the identity of the new tenant in the old TJ Maxx location, and said her understanding was the Brookfield site would be the first Amazon Fresh in New England.

Maybe. The Boston Business Journal reported another hush-hush and yet-to-launch Amazon Fresh site in Saugus, MA would own that distinction.

"I think Amazon's a great corporate partner," Carr told Patch. "And I think they're going to create quality jobs for the community."

Precisely when that will happen remains anyone's guess. Carr has been given no indication when Amazon Fresh will cut the ribbon on its Candlewood Lake Plaza location.

The former Amazon employee said the retail giant's secrecy shenanigans are nothing new to her.

"I launched the site at Exit 8 (in Danbury) for the Amazon logistics warehouse. And they're pretty tight-lipped," she said. "They need to have everything 'a go' before they're even going to say when they're going to open."

The company unofficially tipped its hand in the beginning of May, when it began posting job openings for Amazon Fresh workers in Brookfield online. Three spots are available as of Friday morning.

Amazon's rise in the grocery trade has been meteoric. The retail leviathan acquired Whole Foods in June 2017. In September 2020, the company opened its first Amazon Fresh store, a 35,000-square-foot operation in a strip mall in Woodland Hills, CA. A Huntington Beach site became the 15th Amazon Fresh in California, and the 31st nationally, when it opened last week.

Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh are different animals. The former continues to stress the brand's organic products, while the new kid on the block is leaning heavily into state-of-the-art systems that grease the rails at check-out time. The operation's Just Walk Out technology tracks customers as they shop and automatically debits their account or bank card when they exit.

"Amazon Fresh is a new grocery store designed from the ground up to offer a seamless grocery shopping experience, whether customers are shopping in- store or online," said Jeff Helbling, vice president of Amazon Fresh Stores. "We've taken our decades of operations experience to deliver consistently low prices for all, and free same-day delivery and pick-up for Prime members."