Grocery Delivery Digest

July 28, 2020

Peter Cook, Publisher

Another great week for news and information regarding food delivery (grocery and restaurant meals). I LOT of money being poured into the sector, and the debate regarding third-party vs. in-house delivery continues.

We are also pleased to announce that due to the extreme interest in the ghost kitchens concept, we will be launching the “Ghost Kitchen News Digest” later this week! We’ll be collecting all the news and analysis from around the web regarding ghost/virtual/cloud kitchens and deliver it to your inbox once per week! There will obviously be a lot of overlap between The Delivery Digest and The Ghost Kitchen News Digest, though each newsletter will have their own particular focus.

Keep an eye out for the new newsletter, and keep reading this one! Have a great rest of the week.

Issue #14

Verizon Media Enables Grocery Shopping from Email - an Industry First

Yahoo Mail users will now be able to fill Walmart shopping carts directly from their inboxes - transforming commerce experience for consumers


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Instacart Data for Apparently 278,531 Accounts for Sale on Dark Web Although Company Denies Breach

The personal information of what could be hundreds of thousands of Instacart customers is being sold on two dark web stores, although the company has denied there has been a breach.


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Food Delivery: The Consolidation Saga Continues

In the span of one year, five large players in the food delivery industry have consolidated into three, following three landmark mergers.


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Publix Goes Chainwide with Instacart Meals ‘Digital Deli’

‘Pub Subs’ become available for same-day delivery and pickup.


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Kroger Building Distribution Center in DC Metro Area Despite no Physical Stores Nearby

Grocery chain is partnering with robotic warehouse tech company Ocado.


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Albertsons' Same-Store Sales Surge on Grocery Delivery Demand

U.S. grocer Albertsons Cos Inc on Monday reported a 26.5% rise in same-store sales in its first quarter as a publicly listed company, driven by demand for home deliveries of groceries during the COVID-19 pandemic.


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Albertsons Signals Slowing Demand After Lockdown Boost

Albertsons Cos Inc reported a 26.5% rise in quarterly same-store sales on Monday, but the grocer signaled weakening demand in the current quarter as consumers temper their spending on daily essentials as lockdown restrictions ease.


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Ruby Tuesday Hawking Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs to Earn Extra Revenue as a Host, not Ghost, Kitchen

Startup restaurant matchmaker Franklin Junction finds restaurants with spare kitchen space, and marries them with brands that want to expand their delivery-only reach


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Chipotle Beats Quarterly Estimates as Digital Sales More than Triple

Digital sales for the quarter - including customers who order ahead through Chipotle's mobile app to pick up in special drive-thru "Chipotlanes" - grew 216% to nearly 61% of total sales.


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Saladworks Poised to Build Upon Expansive Q1 and Q2 2020 Restaurant Growth

Fueling this growth, Saladworks is not only entering traditional restaurant franchises, but it is also expanding into non-traditional retail presences such as a store-within-a-store, universities, ghost kitchens and Military bases.


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Zuul Secures $9 Million to Operate Ghost Kitchens Throughout NYC

The latest round of funding responds to accelerated demand for food delivery


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As Grocery Delivery Passes the Tipping Point, Online Grocer Farmstead Moving to Larger Bay-Area Facility To Increase Delivery Capacity by 10x

Farmstead, the first online grocer to offer fresh, high-quality groceries, delivered for free, at better prices than local supermarkets, announced today that it has signed a lease for a new, greatly expanded microhub space in Burlingame. The space is 6x bigger than Farmstead’s previous microhub on Harrison Street in San Francisco.


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Misfits Market Closes Round, Will Scale Marketplace Offering

Grocery delivery service Misfits announces the close of an $85M capital round.


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In China: Tencent-Backed Missfresh Raises $495 million

Tencent-backed grocery delivery startup Missfresh has raised $495 million in funding, billing the round as the largest single fundraising in China’s grocery delivery industry, Chinese media reported.


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In India: Walmart, Flipkart Agree on Purchase

U.S. retailer sells Indian operations.


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UK’s Euro Food Brands Buys The Food Doctor from William Jackson Food Group

UK healthier-for-you brand The Food Doctor has been sold for an undisclosed sum.


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New Zealand Domino's Amps Up Deliveries with UBCO Electric Motorbikes

With food delivery orders on the rise, Domino’s Pizza is embracing electric transport. And Kiwi business UBCO is providing new electric motorbikes for the growing Domino’s fleet. Two Kiwi businesses innovating for the good of the planet (and pizzas).


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Iraq’s Leezoo Closes Seven Figure Seed Round

Northern Gulf Partners, a frontier market investment firm, and California-based Pay It Forward Venture Capital, have led a seven-figure US dollar seed round investment in Lezzoo, a delivery and e-payment platform that aims to become Iraq's first super-app.


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Study: Companies Convert Idle Retail Sites to Last-Mile Fulfillment Facilities

CBRE finds rush to provide final-mile distribution services as e-commerce growth strains networks.


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Two-Stage Stochastic Optimization: Scheduling Drivers for On-Demand Grocery Delivery

In Grocery Delivery, flexibility poses challenges in terms of matching supply with demand and committing to a service capacity.


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Is There A Path to Profitable Grocery Delivery?

The rapid acceleration in delivery demand has caused major delays, sold-out items and operational glitches — mostly stemming from siloed technology. At the same time, low-margin products and additional costs associated with hiring more delivery staff have eaten into profits. And online growth looks set to continue strengthening. Addressing these challenges to drive operational efficiency requires becoming a truly connected retailer.


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Why Supermarkets are Struggling to Profit from the Online Grocery Boom

But there is only one problem with the surge in online sales: many supermarket chains are struggling to make a sizeable profit — and in some cases, any profit — from ecommerce because of the huge commitment in resources that it requires.


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How Online Grocery Delivery Services Are Redefining Customer Behaviour

The market has shown significant growth during the pandemic lockdowns which are bringing new first time users online to order daily needs from instant delivery platforms.


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The Restaurant of the Future 2.0: Off-Premises, Simplification, and the Evolution of Dine-In

Operators can win with a more efficient model that provides consumers with options not available pre-COVID-19.


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Smaller Footprints, More Drive Thru: Restaurant Design in a COVID World

Design that prioritizes off-premises ordering—such as smaller stores or additional branding in the drive thru—was already becoming popular. Now it’s necessary.


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When COVID-19 Accelerated the Demand for Off-Premise Dining, Restaurants Sprang into Action

Even before March 2020, restaurant experts predicted the rise of off-premise dining options to meet growing consumer expectations for online ordering. The demand grew exponentially as consumers sought food options while sheltering in place to combat COVID. The rise of bundles, family packaged options and even of terms such as ‘contactless’ pickup and ‘touchless’ menus have become part of the new norm.


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NC Labs Webinar: Post-COVID-19 Restaurant Landscape

Join Net Conversion with guest speaker Nick Scarpino, SVP of Marketing and Off-Premise Dining for Portillo's Hot Dogs, as we cover trends and media strategies for restaurants in a post-COVID world.


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Third-Party Delivery Is More Important Than Ever

An increasingly popular alternative to in-house delivery is to utilize a third-party delivery service. These platforms can give thousands of new customers access to a restaurant’s products, increase brand visibility in their area and allow them to ring up sales for off-premise dining.


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How to Run a Successful Off-Premise Restaurant and Grow Online Sales during COVID-19

Customers are restricted from dining in your restaurant, so make it as easy and accessible as possible to order online, with as many ordering methods as possible to cater to different customer preferences. Combine this with getting rid of third party delivery commissions that hurt your business, and you are really onto something!


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The Pandemic has Battered Casual Dining Restaurants, but the CEO of Tampa's Bloomin' Brands Sees Opportunity Ahead

Bloomin's newfound success with takeout and delivery sales will drive the development of new stores and the remodel of existing locations, CEO David Deno told the Business Journal.


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Food Delivery Apps Deliver, but at What Cost?

The pros and cons of restaurant food delivery apps came under the microscope in a Produce Marketing Association Foodservice: Delivered session.


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The Strong Demand for Takeout and Delivery Presents Packaging Challenges

Operators are dealing with increased costs, supply issues and sticking to sustainability goals.


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Meet Chowbus: The Food Delivery Company Focused On Asian Restaurants

Chowbus was founded in 2016 by Suyu Zhang and Linxin Wen with the goal of connecting consumers with authentic Asian food restaurants that are mostly left out of mainstream third-party apps.


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Restaurant Owners During Coronavirus Say Third-Party Delivery Saved Business and Workers

80% of restaurant operators said third-party delivery prevented them from laying off staff during coronavirus pandemic.


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The Buzz Around Cloud Kitchens

With a business model that’s as pandemic-adjacent as possible, a cloud kitchen, also sometimes called a ghost kitchen, is a virtual restaurant or RAAS (Restaurantsas-a-service) that is designed for online ordering and delivery.


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Is Your Restaurant Ready for Ghost Kitchens?

Ghost kitchens. You’ve heard about them nonstop since the pandemic overturned the foodservice industry and forced almost every restaurant in the country to go off-premises. And with the fate of the restaurant dining room still very much uncertain (see below), we’ll see more restaurants turn to the ghost kitchen model in the future.


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Can Ghost Kitchens Save Restaurants?

In Washington DC, Ghostline—an establishment that will gather several chefs cooking in different styles to offer takeout, delivery, and limited patio seating—will open for business Sept. 1, without serving customers inside. Besides Ghostline, Pasadena, CA-based Kitchen United and Houston-based Click Virtual Food Hall seem to be among the only other ghost food halls in the U.S.


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Restaurant Industry Won't Give Up the Ghost

Restaurants are embracing ghost kitchens as a way of meeting the growing takeaway and home-delivery market without the cost of overheads for dine-in customers.


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Virtual Restaurant Group Launches Ghost Kitchen Franchise Model

The concept, which uses ghost kitchens to operate commissary-style production facilities with delivery-only service nationwide, brings 50 brands to existing spaces of independent restaurant owners seeking new ways to maintain their businesses in the changing COVID-19 restaurant market.


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San Francisco's China Live to Open in Ghost Kitchens throughout the Peninsula

Starting Aug. 1, China Live in San Francisco will be delivering its sheng jian bao, Dungeness crab handrolls and Dutch Crunch pork buns locally from ghost kitchens throughout the Peninsula.


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Cloud Kitchens: The Future of India's Food Biz

The cloud kitchen market in India will hit $1.05 billion by 2023.


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How Do Oil Platforms Get Their Groceries?

We just thought this would be a fun addition to the newsletter. Give it a go.


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