Whole Foods and Instacart are ending their partnership in 2019 (AMZN, WFM)

Whole Foods and Instacart have started to wind down their grocery delivery partnership that currently spans 76 Whole Foods stores and includes 1,415 in-store shoppers from Instacart, according to a corporate blog post from Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta.

Whole Foods Total Sales BI Intelligence

Over 200 of those Instacart workers will be affected starting February 10, 2019, and Whole Foods will leave Instacarts marketplace in the following months.

The partnership seemed destined to end after Amazons acquisition of Whole Foods in June 2017, but Instacarts recently decreased fees may have sped up the process.

Prior to the acquisition, Amazon was already providing grocery delivery services, and once it acquired Whole Foods it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before it pushed out Instacart in favor of its own offerings.

And while Amazon has expanded Prime Now delivery from Whole Foods and is still doing so, Instacart continued to deliver from Whole Foods too. But unnamed developments over the last 18 months forced Instacart to scale down the partnership faster than planned, a source told TechCrunch. One such development may be Instacarts recently announced reduction in delivery and membership fees, which made its pricing more competitive compared with Prime and Prime Now delivery from Whole Foods, potentially causing Amazon to hasten the separation.

Without Instacart, Amazon now has full control of Whole Foods online grocery business, and it needs to take advantage to dominate the market.Amazon has rolled out some changes to Whole Foods physical stores, like perks for Prime shoppers, but many of its efforts have gone toward maximizing the grocers online value by extending its reach for delivery.

To get the most out of its acquisition, Amazon needs to offer delivery from each Whole Foods store, as well as curbside pickup which was introduced more recently and not available at as many locations. This is because Whole Foods has to match up with competitors like Walmart and Kroger, which have more stores and are making their delivery more widely available and possibly more convenient for consumers.

Meanwhile, Instacart should be fine without Whole Foods, and Amazon entering the market may still be an overall positive for the company.Losing Whole Foods will reduce Instacarts revenue by less than 5%, a source told Recode. Between its tremendous amount of funding , and its list of other clients that includes Kroger, Sams Club, and Costco, Instacart wont be too hurt by the end of the relationship.

Further, Instacart may still be thankful for Amazons arrival in brick-and-mortar grocery because it's caused grocers to look for ways to combat it many of which have turned to Instacart to do so. In the six months following Amazons acquisition of Whole Foods, Instacart inked deals with Kroger, Aldi, and Albertsons, expanding its reach and growing consumer awareness, establishing it as a major player in online grocery, even without Whole Foods.