VANCOUVER — Walmart Canada has shuttered its Toronto-based innovation incubator Blue Labs, integrating the unit it dubbed “the future of retail” into its regular operations, about eight months after its official launch.

Walmart Canada “is always looking for ways to streamline our operations, and that includes looking at where and how to invest resources,” wrote senior manager of corporate affairs Stephanie Fusco in a statement to The Logic. “As we continue to position our company for a strong future, we made the decision to integrate the innovative focus of Blue Labs directly into our business.” 

The company did not immediately respond to questions about the shutdown.

Walmart Canada officially launched Blue Labs in June at the Collision conference in Toronto, with Lee Jeyes, at the time its head of innovation, taking centre stage. The retailer also hosted a “thinking outside the box” booth during the conference, and more than 100 of its associates attended.

Blue Labs, which started in 2021, was the first innovation incubator created by the Canadian arm of the retailer, and was intended to help it compete and meet customer demand, according to a video from the launch. “It’s a creative team of strategists, engineers, design thinking specialists. But overall a team that just loves to solve bold problems and challenges,” said Jeyes in the video.

The Blue Labs team worked on “disrupting the future of retail,” according to one of its staffer’s LinkedIn profiles: “We are discovering, testing and launching radical, disruptive innovations to address some of the biggest and most complex challenges our customers and leaders are facing.” They worked out of a downtown Toronto office.

It’s unclear how big the team was, but as of Wednesday only five staff still listed Blue Labs as their employer on LinkedIn. Jeyes, who built and led the unit, announced his departure two weeks ago. He called Blue Labs “my proudest piece of work to date.”

Some Blue Labs staff members “exited the business” as a result of the change, said Fusco, “but the majority of associates remained with Walmart.”

Those who stayed won’t be focused on the same type of work as during their brief time at Blue Labs. Instead, said Fusco, they will “tackle innovations with more immediate customer impact and benefit within existing Walmart Canada departments.”

Walmart has been scaling back its tech operations. The U.S.-based retailer announced Tuesday it would shutter three of its existing tech hubs—one each in Austin, Texas; Carlsbad, Calif.; and Portland, Ore.—as it consolidated its U.S. tech teams within select locations. The workers at those specialized offices would be allowed to transfer to different locations.

Walmart will now have 14 tech hubs around the world, including one in Toronto that was announced in March 2022, said spokesperson Robert Munroe in an email. It also has associates in Tel Aviv, Israel, following recent acquisitions. The company’s global tech division did not include Blue Labs.