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Amazon.com Inc. marked its first day as owner of upscale grocer Whole Foods Market Inc. by cutting prices on a number of organic goods at locations across Canada and the United States, a first salvo in a battle observers believe could alter the grocery industry’s competitive landscape.

Organic avocados were selling for $1.99 each at Whole Foods’ Yorkville location in Toronto on Monday, a 76-cent price-cut. Lean pasture-raised ground beef had been reduced to $5.99 per pound, from $8.57. And the price of responsibly farmed Atlantic salmon had been slashed to $5.99 per 170 grams from $7.99.

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The price tags of those products and some others sported the logos of Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods and Seattle, Wash.- based Amazon, which announced their coupling in June. A sign near the end of one checkout line boasted the two companies are “growing something good.”

“Generally speaking, I think it was a very, very good day for both Amazon and Whole Foods,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor who researches food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “It is clearly sending a statement to the entire food market in North America.”