End of Week Update 10/9
Rounding up news that may have slipped past your radar through October 9th.
GrubMarket, an e-commerce market that sells both to households as having corporate customers including 500 grocery stores, 8,000 restaurants and 2,000 corporate offices, announced that they raised a $60 Million Series D round that valued the company between $400-$500 Million. At the center of these sales is it’s in-house developed software, WholesaleWare, an inventory and compliance solution that services both the physical and the online spaces. Small producers and manufacturers are usually priced out of the SaaS market and GrubMarket is giving them an opportunity to utilize the technology that the big companies have had access to for a number of decades.
E-Commerce Grocery Shopping Survey from GoodEggs
GoodEggs, an online food retailer headquartered in the Bay Area recently conducted a Online Grocery Habits survey that offered some thought provoking results including:
81% of people who have shopped for groceries online during the pandemic intend to stick with this behavior.
84% of shoppers stated that they are spending more (60%) or significantly more (24%) on groceries since COVID.
The thing shoppers have missed most about the in-store experience is discovering items that weren’t on their list. (62% of Shoppers)
75% of shoppers stated that their eating and cooking habits have changed.
Coca-Cola has decided to discontinue their Coconut Water Brand, Zico by the end of the year citing underperformance of the brand. Zico, helped launched the Coconut Water category in the US and industry experts have had mixed reactions to the announcement including Brad Barnhorn (also a former Board Member) telling BEVNET:
“Right now it seems clear they see more long term potential in areas such as energy and even potentially alcoholic beverages with the Topo Chico hard seltzer extension than they do with premium juice and coconut water where Odwalla and Zico had lost momentum and market position in what in the overall beverage landscape are relatively small, mature categories.”
Bigger question now is who will step up and fulfill the demand that Zico had amongst shoppers - established brands like Vita Coco or an emerging brand that may have not even been started yet?
Aldi UK launches Curbside Pick-up
While this may seem a like news at first it’s important to point out that in the United States Aldi uses Instacart to deploy Curbside Pick-up and Delivery. Their UK counter part has deployed the tech and processes to do this in-house across the UK. Aldi’s international organization regularly will test or pilot a program like this in one of their countries and when they find success roll it out in the other countries that they operate in. While it isn’t publicly known Aldi US’s share of sales or orders to Instacart, but if they do decide to take this in-house, losing Aldi’s 2,000 stores from the marketplace will not be insignificant to Instacart’s bottom line.
Only half of NYC’s restaurants and bars will potentially re-open
New York State’s Office of the State Comptroller released a report this week outlining some key facts and predictions about the restaurant industry in the City that accounted for $27 Billion in sales last year. Currently NYC is in Phase 2 of their reopening which permits outdoor dining however only 43% of these establishments have applied for and received the approval for outdoor seating. Losing half of the establishments in NYC would mean nearly 12,000 restaurants and bars would shutter and 159,000 jobs would be lost.
Hot Take from NY Mag’s Grub Street on how Delivery Apps are Ruining Grocery Shopping
This is a really well written piece that has a lot of zingers on how the gig-economy is making grocery shopping into a nightmare including:
‘“Instacart drivers think they’re playing Mario Kart,” one Bostonian told The Wall Street Journal in 2019, referencing the situation at his local Wegmans.”
The good news is that these unsuspecting drivers will soon be met with a hefty fine delivered by your neighbor’s 5 year old driving the Police Shopping Cart.
For your sweet tooth - you can now find Milk Bar’s products at Target Nationwide.
If you ever have been able to have any of Milk Bar’s desserts you know how “dangerous” this will be for unsuspecting shoppers looking to grab something sweet. Milk Bar has a very loyal customer base that will surely flock to Target’s to scoop up these products “including confetti, compost, and cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow ($4.99 for eight cookies). Birthday, chocolate birthday, and chocolate chip flavored truffle crumb cakes ($2.99 for two).”
And for a quick laugh, the Swedish Transportation Authority denied a Driverless Truck a Road Permit.
Einride, a Swedish Driverless Vehicle Company, had announced partnerships with Lidl in April and Oatly in May of this year that would help each of the companies significantly reduce their carbon footprint in Sweden (not to mention their payroll). The CEO of Einride, Robert Falck, posted on Facebook this week that:
“We will not get the next permit to test on public road because the authorities demand that the vehicle must be able to make a blow in a alcohol test machine and show a driving license [sic].” (translated)
Not ideal and not to mention that’s kind of the point of driverless vehicles…lol
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s update.
