Grocery Delivery Digest

June 23, 2020

Peter Cook, Publisher

The grocery and meal delivery industries continue to evolve at light speed. The rapid rise in demand, challenging customer experiences, and technological advances have resulted in large investments (and valuations). It also means huge opportunities for those who get it right. At the end of the day, companies will figure out the technology, but they also need to figure out how to make sure the are sending out the right delivery personnel. Going cheap on the the people who are their only personal interaction with the customer would be devastating to a company, no matter how much they invest in the technology. As you will see in today’s newsletter, there are many different approaches. Some will work well for some of the market, other solutions may work better for another segment. I doubt one size will fit all. We’ll see. It’ll be fun to watch how this all plays out! Enjoy the newsletter and please share it with your colleagues!

Issue #9
 

Aldi and Lidl to Continue Push into Online Delivery

The pair of German discounters have until now shunned online grocery delivery to protect their margins and avoid the high cost of delivering fresh food, which is largely incompatible with their business models.


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Stop & Shop Joins Supermarket Crowd on Instacart

After pioneering grocery delivery in the Northeast only to see Instacart expand service rapidly to its rivals during the COVID-19 pandemic, Stop & Shop is now an Instacart option itself in Connecticut.


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DoorDash Nears $16 Billion Valuation with $400M Haul

Food and grocery delivery company DoorDash has raised $400 million at a nearly $16 billion valuation. Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity Management co-led the round, with T. Rowe Price and existing investors participating.


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Albertsons Launches its IPO

The grocer, which runs 2,252 stores under banners including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons and Shaw’s, estimates that its stock will begin trading in the range of $18 to $20 per share, suggesting that the company could raise between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion when it goes public.


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Kroger's Omnichannel Investments Pay Off Big in Q1

Kroger’s digital sales grew 92% during Q1 as many safety-conscious shoppers opted to get their groceries delivered to their homes and cars. Kroger added delivery and store pickup slots and waived the $5 fee for its pickup service in order to drive shopper engagement.


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Booths Joins Deliveroo for Grocery Delivery in Under 30 Minutes in UK Service Area

Deliveroo has brought a new grocer on board that lets customer order essential household items with delivery in as little as 30 minutes - and it's not restricted to London for a change. In fact, it's up north with delivery throughout Lancashire and Greater Manchester.


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Waitrose Confirms Dramatic Expansion of Grocery Delivery Service Across the UK

The announcement comes as the supermarket processed more than 150,000 online orders in a week for the first time. The company says the figure is more than double the amount of weekly orders at the start of this year and represents a significant milestone in its online expansion plans.


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British Retail Group Tesco to Sell its Business in Poland

British retail group Tesco has agreed to sell its business in Poland to Denmark’s retail group Salling Group A/S for £181m. The deal includes 301 stores together with two distribution centers and head office.


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Dumpling Raises $6.5M for Grocery Delivery Platform

Dumpling, an online platform that allows people to start their own grocery shopping and delivery business, announced today that it has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding.


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Northgate Gonzalez Market Expands Online Delivery Options with Instacart

Hispanic supermarket chain Northgate González Market announced its partnership with Instacart to offer online grocery delivery service from 36 of its supermarkets in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties.


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HerdX And UPS Deliver Blockchain Verified Beef

The shipment started at Dean and Peeler Premium Beef in South Texas and shipped via UPS to an event held at The Richter Tavern in Boerne, Texas.


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CVS Health Partners With DoorDash For Same-Day Grocery Delivery

CVS announced it partnered with DoorDash for same-day delivery of groceries, food, and non-prescription items. There will be over 3,000 products that will be available for purchase through the DoorDash mobile app and website.


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Smoothie King Signs Exclusive Delivery Deal with DoorDash

Beginning in early May, guests near any of the nationwide Smoothie King locations can order all 83 purpose blends through the DoorDash app or website for delivery or pick up.


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TiffinLabs Acquires Access to 1,000 Delivery-Enabled Kitchens Globally

Creates one of the World's Largest Networks of Smart Kitchens with US footprint in Austin, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco.


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German Retail Grocery Attracts Irish Investors to Tune of €30m

The fund invests in German food-dominated retail parks and food retail warehouses and its portfolio includes properties in 67 locations which generate €41m in annual rents.


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Uber Sees Grocery Delivery Sparking its Next Wave of Growth

Delivering groceries is Uber Technologies Inc’s next frontier – at least in Latin America.


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Chinese Ride-Hailing Giant Didi is Testing Grocery E-Commerce

Ride-hailing platform Didi Chuxing is piloting a new grocery e-commerce project in Chengdu as it looks to diversify its revenue streams.


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Wall Street Journal: Grocers Embrace Food Delivery, but They Still Don’t Love It

Many supermarkets remain skeptical of the now-popular service that boosts sales but hurts margins; ‘It’s a two-edged sword’


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Offering Grocery Delivery Service Still Not Worth It to Many Companies

The next era of home deliveries will prioritize efficiency and profitability, which are already separating the winners from losers.


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Close or Deliver? 10 Considerations to Make the Best COVID-19 Choice for Your Restaurant

Is pushing delivery the right answer for your restaurant? Well, it depends. To succeed as a take-out business, you need to already have the following in place (or quickly get it).


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Third-Party vs. In-House Delivery: A Guide to Informed Choice

What we can say with certainty in June of 2020 is that the brands you operate and market have major decisions to make about serving customers in both the best and worst of times. This is crucial work, and the only thing more important in local commerce right now is the significant power brands are suddenly wielding to set standards for how delivery and delivery persons will work. Recognize that power.


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Restaurant Industry Banks on Off-Premise Sales Amid Pandemic

The industry is benefiting from increase in off-premise sales, which primarily includes delivery, takeout, drive-thru, catering, meal kits, and off-site options such as kiosks and food trucks, owing to the coronavirus pandemic.


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Slushies? Flasks? Bars Look to Creative Ideas After To-Go Cocktail Bill Passes

Bars are already preparing for a flurry of cool creativity after the Iowa Legislature passed a bill which allows them to continue selling drinks for off-premise consumption.


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THINK Tank: Will Big Lots’ Partnership With Instacart Bring Bigger Business?

Available at nearly 1,400 Big Lots stores in 47 states, the new partnership brings affordable groceries, as well as everyday essentials, and even home decor, straight to customers’ doors.


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Kroger Stuns with 92% E-Commerce Gain, but it has to Prove it’s Not a Coronavirus Blip

Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the U.S., but it’s lagged behind competitors like Walmart, Amazon and Target with e-commerce. The grocer has tried to accelerate its efforts by partnering with British robotics company Ocado to build a network of fulfillment centers.


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Community Roundtable: A View Into Walmart's Online Grocery and Pickup Business

Take a look at the deployment, business processes, automation, and autonomous vehicle developments happening now for Walmart’s Online Grocery and Pickup businesses.


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Webinar: The Surge in Demand Driven by COVID-19 for Grocery Delivery and Pickup Services is Slowing and that has Implications for where Retailers will Invest.

The Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey conducted at the end of May 2020, in combination with other research from Brick Meets Click, documents how COVID-19 is impacting online grocery shopping in the US. Learn what these insights mean along with guidance and perspective from Brick Meets Click and Mercatus.


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How Groceries Can Adjust to Delivery Changes

As Covid-19 continues to ravage on, retailers worldwide are undergoing massive grocery changes. As a result, customers expect your shop to deliver more than ever. So, do you have the tech in place that can streamline some of those new online delivery updates? Are you ready to shape your business to meet the new reality?


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Grocery Delivery Coming to College Dorm Rooms to Mitigate Risk?

Amid the uncertainty of what college will look like this fall, one thing is for sure — it won’t be the typical experience for students.


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Meal Kit and Grocery Deliveries Soar as Lockdown Keeps Shoppers at Home

Meal kit and grocery delivery firms have seen sales surge in recent months as the amount of money spent on home-delivered food more than doubled in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Spending on meal kits and grocery boxes sent to people’s doors soared by 114% in April after people were told to stay indoors, according to new figures from Cardlytics.


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BOPIS (Buy Online Pick Up in Store Up) Hits the Big Time

Adobe Analytics via (Digital Commerce 360) reports BOPIS orders increased a whopping 208% in April over the same period in 2019, based on online sales data from trillions of anonymous visits to retail sites and tens of millions of product SKUs from 80 of the top 100 retailers in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000. The stats are based on 18 product categories including apparel, electronics, home, grocery, appliance, personal care, office supplies, and more.


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The Future of Grocery Delivery Begins with Ownership.

Our ultimate goal is simple: We want to make dumpling the trusted partner that helps anyone launch, run, and grow their own service-based business. And we want to help those business owners build financial stability and wealth for the long term.


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Revolution Agriculture Reimagines the Food Supply Chain with Urban ‘Farmlets’ in Backyards

Founded by a former intelligence specialist for the U.S. Navy, Revolution Agriculture will soon launch a direct-to-consumer grocery delivery business in Tacoma, Wash., that sells produce grown in backyards and on other surplus land in the community. The company plans to partner with grocery delivery services including Instacart and Postmates to distribute its produce to customers.


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Michigan Fields Grocery Delivery Service Launches, Offers State-made Products

New Detroit-based online grocery delivery service, Michigan Fields, aims to bring state grown and sourced products to customers’ doorsteps.


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Portland Startup Revives the Milkman Model for Farm-Fresh Produce

Julia Niiro’s MilkRun pays small producers to deliver their own goods locally.


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Instacart Founder Apoorva Mehta is now a Billionaire, Forbes Says

America's newest billionaire is Apoorva Mehta, the 33-year-old founder of grocery delivery app Instacart.


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Apoorva Mehta had 20 Failed Start-Ups before Instacart

Over the last four years, he has grown the company to more than 300 full-time employees and tens of thousands of part-time grocery shoppers. The start-up offers on-demand and same-day grocery delivery in hundreds of cities in 20 states.


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Why Kroger Company's Automation Deal Is A Game-Changer In The Retail Industry

Kroger will be banking on improved e-commerce logistics that pushed digital sales to 22% by the start of the year ahead of Q1 2020 earnings date in June 18, 2020.


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How Will the Popularity of Online Grocery Deliveries Play Out for the Cold Storage Sector?

A surge in cold storage demand is expected to last. But exactly how it will play out is still an open question.


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Wall Street Journal: Warehouse Demand Surges as Retailers Reset Supply Chains

A sharp drop that began with coronavirus-triggered lockdowns in March has turned around amid a consumer rush toward e-commerce


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Why the Battle between Sales and Fulfilment will Redefine the Physical Store

The pandemic has placed a lot of pressure on bricks-and-mortar retail, not least by re-emphasizing quite how convenient and comprehensive e-commerce solutions are by comparison. But as store operators rushed to find new forms of revenue whilst premises remained closed – often by home-brewing their own delivery services – what many have realized is that the future of e-commerce is less about the global supply chain and more about the local one. And that’s a future in which stores could play a key role.


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Delivering through the Pandemic: Canam Helps Speed Grocery Distribution Projects as Demand Skyrockets

As the pandemic shakes up the supermarket landscape, Quebec-based steel fabricator, Canam Group, is helping the grocery chains maintain progress on their new distribution centres and in some cases, accelerate project timelines in response to growing online orders.


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All You Need To Know About Launching An App Like Instacart

As Instacart is reaching new heights during this pandemic, many entrepreneurs take inspiration and want to launch a business or delivery app like Instacart. To draw a better understanding, let’s take a deeper look at Instacart’s customer retention strategies by dissecting its business model and revenue model.


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Jupiter Wants to Put Grocery Delivery on Autopilot

Jupiter is a grocery delivery and meal planning startup that’s approaching the market with an eye toward convenience and automation.


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Corner Shops Take on Corporates as New App Signals Independent Fightback

Scores of the region’s corner shops are queuing up to take on the likes of Tesco thanks to an innovative startup that’s providing a “once in a lifetime chance to level the playing field”.


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Opinion: A Smaller Competitor to Instacart is a Better Deal for Shoppers

“It’s a big mind shift from having gigs doled out to you to being a business owner,” says Shapiro. “You’re doing your own marketing and promotions and setting your own prices. The coaches help take [personal shoppers] to the next level.”


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Delivery Technologies Are Reshaping the Grocery Industry

Shift to cooking could be a short order, but grocery delivery likely to thrive


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Google, Carrefour Team On Voice-Activated Grocery Delivery

Carrefour Group, one of the world’s biggest supermarket chains, and Google are launching a voice-activated grocery shopping service in France.


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Drivers in the Delivery Service Economy

Service matters more today than ever before


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