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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future of Grocery

Imagr Pushes its Smart Cart Cashierless Checkout to the APAC Region

Let’s just get this out of the way. Imagr is not Imagur. Imagr is a New Zealand-based startup angling to bring its smart cart, cashierless shopping solution to grocery, convenience and other stores across the Asia Pacific region. Imagur is an online library of cute/funny gifs. Since we are a publication covering the future of food, you can probably guess which one we’ll be writing about here.

There are two main camps when it comes to cashierless checkout at retail. in one camp, you have companies like Grabango and Zippin, which install hardware (cameras and sensors) and software (computer vision and AI) inside a store to automatically keep track of what people purchase.

In the other camp, you have companies like Imagr, which push all that technology down into the shopping cart and basket to monitor what shoppers place in them.

There is no “better” solution and each has its advantages. Retrofitting a store provides less “friction” for shoppers (they literally just grab an item and go), but retrofitting a store can be costly, especially for large stores. Smart cart solutions don’t require any installation, but do require shoppers to use the designated carts and baskets.

Execs at Imagr gave me a video demo of its smart carts in action this week, and they work pretty much as you’d expect. A shopper downloads the Imagr app, and scans a barcode on the special Imagr basket (and forthcoming full-sized cart). The baskets have a ring of cameras and lights that use computer vision to identify items placed inside. Consumers shop as they normally would with the Imagr app on their phone keeping a tally. When it comes time to check out, a human checkout clerk scans a barcode on the shopper’s phone to complete the transaction.

In that workflow, you may notice that the process isn’t entirely cashierless, as there is a person who checks shoppers out. Imagr said that the reason for this was to increase its speed to market. By keeping the cashier in place for now, they can get the rest of its technology into stores.

Speed to market seems to be an overriding ethos for Imagr, which has foresaken some of the extra bells and whistles you might expect to find on a smart cart. Unlike rival smart cart companies like Caper, Veeve and Amazon, Imagr’s smart carts do not have screens attached. Screens can provide in-store guidance, and upsell products to generate additional sales.

But Imagr told me that it purposely avoided adding screens to make its carts simpler to use, it didn’t want people to have to figure a new interface out. They also skipped the screen for privacy reasons (i.e. having an item that might be embarrassing in big letters on a screen that others might see), and because it was just one more thing that could break (like a bum wheel on a shopping cart).

Imagr is focused on the Asia Pacific region and is already live in three locations across Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, as well as Aukland, New Zealand. The company has a partnership H2O in Japan, which operates two grocery retail brands there, as well as two European retailers to be announced.

The Japanese market is turning into a hotbed for cashierless checkout. Softbank led a $30 million Series A round in Accel Robotics, Zippin recently partnered with Fujitsu to sell cahierless tech in Japan, and Imagr’s $9 million Series A round was led by Toshiba (Imagr has raised $12.5 million in total).

Interest in cashierless checkout was accelerated by the COVID pandemic, as retailers sought to reduce the amount of human-to-human interactions in their stores. But Japan has an added impetus for cashierless checkout because of its aging population, and the need to automate more of its labor force.

In other words, more retailers are going to be checking out cashierless checkout this year.

Weezy Raises $20M Series A for Fast Grocery Delivery

UK-based speedy grocery delivery service Weezy has raised a $20 million Series A round of funding. TechCrunch was first to report the news, writing that the round was led by New York-based Left Lane Capital, with participation from DN Capital, existing investors Heartcore Capital and angel investors. Today’s funding announcement follows a $1 million pre-Seed round raised by Weezy in August of last year.

Weezy promises grocery delivery in as little as 15 minutes, thanks to its network of smaller fulfillment centers that are nestled within neighborhoods, closer to shoppers. Orders are then delivered via a network of its delivery people riding electric scooters or bicycles.

Weezy operates in London and will use the cash to expand to more neighborhoods in that city and across the U.K. As TechCrunch notes, the presence of a U.S.-based lead investor could indicate that a hop across the pond to the states could be in the offing.

Speedy European grocery delivery appears to be a sector that’s heating up for venture capital. Last month, Germany-based Gorillas raised $44 million for its similar, smaller fulfillment center approach to grocery delivery.

Here in the U.S. we see companies such as Fabric building out small automated grocery fulfillment centers and DoorDash building out a network of dark convenience stores that are delivery only.

It’s no wonder that money is flowing into online grocery services. The pandemic pushed record amounts of people into e-grocery shopping last year. With the virus still raging across the globe and subsequent lockdowns, online grocery shopping remains sticky with consumers, who are now habituated to new purchasing behaviors.

CookUnity Raises $15.5M to Expand ‘Chef-to-Consumer’ Meal Service

Meal subscription service CookUnity announced today it has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Fuel Venture Capital with participation from new and existing investors, including IDC Ventures, which led CookUnity’s seed round of funding. The Series A round brings CookUnity’s total funding to date to $23 million. 

The Brooklyn, NY-based company said it plans to use the new funds to expand its service across North America, grow its marketing efforts, and open two new kitchens, in California and Texas, to support the expansion.

CookUnity bills itself as a “chef-to-consumer platform.” Its subscription service, which currently serves New York City, offers users weekly choices of meals made by a wide range of local chefs, from those with Michelin stars to up-and-coming ones. Pricing starts at $10.49 per meal, with food options serving a fairly wide range of dietary needs and preferences. Meals arrive fully prepared, with instructions for heating and plating. 

For chefs, both established and up and coming, CookUnity’s platform provides another way to reach potential customers. This is especially important at a time when most restaurants are still operating under capacity restrictions. Consumers over the last several months have turned to other means of getting dinner on the table. One of those ways has been meal kits and subscription services, a sector that’s seen something of a resurgence in recent months. Bringing chefs, many of which have been out of work because of the pandemic, to the meal kit sector seems an obvious way to create new food options for consumers and opportunities for those making the food.

To that end, CookUnity says it plans to expand its roster of chefs in the coming months. The company currently has 32 chefs participating and says it will aggressively expand that number to around 150 by mid-2022. The new kitchen locations opening in Los Angeles and Texas will also expand CookUnity’s chef roster beyond local NYC chefs. 

Walmart to Test Grocery Delivery to Smart Home Lockers

Walmart announced today that it will start testing grocery delivery to smart lockers that sit outside a person’s home. The pilot program will begin this Spring in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The smart lockers are built by Home Valet and feature three temperature zones (frozen, refrigerated and fresh). When a grocery delivery order is placed with Walmart, the delivery driver unlocks the box with a smart device, and places the groceries inside. Customers unlock the box when they return home and retrieve their items.

This smart locker approach could actually benefit Walmart shoppers in a few ways. First, customers get more flexibility because they don’t need to be/stay at home when their delivery is scheduled. Second, it secures groceries away from the elements and potential porch thieves. And finally, this delivery method is contactless, which will continue to be important even after the pandemic recedes. (Bonus benefit: Dropping off groceries to a box outside your house is a lot less creepy than Walmart’s idea of having a delivery driver enter your house when you aren’t there.)

But the smart locker is just the latest aggressive move by Walmart to make its delivery more convenient as it dukes it out with other retailers like Amazon and Kroger for your grocery dollar. In addition to launching its Walmart+ delivery service last year, Walmart is also testing grocery delivery via drones and autonomous vehicles.

Walmart can’t afford to rest on its laurels. Online grocery shopping is projected to hit $250 billion by 2025, accounting for 21.5 percent of all grocery sales. As such, everyone in the space is testing new programs to get you your groceries faster. Kroger is set to open the first of its robot-powered automated fulfillment centers this year. Albertsons recently debuted an automated curbside pickup kiosk. And Amazon will drop off groceries inside your garage when you’re out.

Walmart’s smart locker reminded me of a patent that Amazon was issued a couple years back for a robot that would live at your house, and then autonomously venture out to retrieve packages from a nearby pickup hub.

This might be a little overkill, but it’s not hard to imagine a time when Walmart’s smart locker sprouts wheels and goes to pick up your groceries. Walmart is already automating the middle-mile for delivery, so it’s not a big mental leap for your grocery being autonomously driven from a fulfillment center to a neighborhood hub. Once your order arrives at that hub, your smart locker drives over to get your groceries and drives them back to your doorstep to await being put in your kitchen.

That particular vision is still a ways away, but given how much retailers are investing in delivery infrastructure, it’s not that far off in the future.

CES 2021: Samsung’s SmartThings App Adding Shoppable Recipe and Guided Cooking

Samsung announced today that it will be adding shoppable recipes, guided cooking and more such functionality to its SmartThings Cooking mobile app.

The added functionality is powered by Whisk’s Food AI (Samsung NEXT acquired Whisk in March of 2019), some of which has been available as part of the Family Hub software found in Samsung appliances.

With today’s news, smartphone users with the SmartThings Cooking app will be able to:

  • Get personalized recipe recommendations based on taste, preferences as well as what is immediately available.
  • Shop for ingredients and other food through the Whisk network of retailers including Walmart, Kroger, Instacart and Amazon Fresh.
  • Guided cooking instructions along with automatic temperature controls sent out to synced Samsung cooking appliances.

This could be the year where shoppable recipes and appliance integration take off. We are coming off a record year of online grocery shopping, thanks to the pandemic, so more people than ever are accustomed to buying groceries, including perishables, online. So the logical next step is tying together all of the threads in the meal journey: discovery, selection, access and instruction.

Samsung’s integrating functionality does all that and extends it now to the mobile phone. Of course, taking advantage of all of these new features means that you have to buy into the Samsung ecosystem and get all your appliances from the same maker.

As CES is kicking off this week, there will be a slew of kitchen appliance related announcements. Given how much online grocery shopping took off last year, and its projected growth over the coming years, I wonder how much more shopping integration we’ll see.

Albertsons Debuts Automated Pickup Kiosk

Grocery retailer Albertsons announced today that it is piloting a new automated kiosk for grocery pickup. The kiosk is located at one of the company’s Jewel-Osco stores in Chicago.

The new kiosk, built by Cleveron, has regular and deep-freeze temperature zones, and gives curbside pickup customers a new contactless option when getting their groceries.

Jewel-Osco customers in the service area interested in using the new kiosk select “Kiosk PickUp” when shopping online, and are then give two-hour time slots to pick up their groceries. When customers arrive, they scan a code on their phone at the kiosk and their order is robotically moved to the front of the unit for pickup.

Last year, Alberstons expanded the use of automated micro-fulfillment centers, which use robotics in the back of house to pick and pack e-commerce orders. With today’s news, Albertsons is extending its automation efforts from the store room to the curb.

Albertsons’ moves, however, are part of a larger wave of automation running through the grocery industry right now. Last year was a record year for online grocery shopping, thanks to the pandemic closing restaurants and keeping people at home. In response, grocery chains have been adding systems to make online grocery shopping and order fulfillment easier. Kroger will open its automated fulfillment centers this year, FreshDirect built out an automated fulfillment facility in D.C. using Fabric’s technology, while Walmart started testing grocery delivery via autonomous vehicles.

Albertsons first automated kiosk in Chicago is already fulfilling orders and the company says it plans to install a second unit at a San Francisco Bay Area Safeway soon.

Thistle Raises $10.3M to Expand Its Plant-Forward Meal Delivery Service

San Francisco-based prepared meal service Thistle announced this week it has raised a $10.3 million Series B round to expand its plant-based meal delivery operation. The round was led by PowerPlant Ventures, with participation from Siddhi Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, and the venture arm of Rich Products Corporation. The new financing brings Thistle’s total funding to date to $17 million. 

The company will use the new funds to widen its geographical reach. Currently, Thistle’s service is available in many parts of California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, the North Bay, Sacramento, Davis County, Orange County, and Los Angeles. It also recently added Las Vegas, Nevada to its roster, and also ships to other parts of Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

According to today’s press release, the new expansion will push the company towards having “a bi-coastal footprint” at some point in 2021 as well as a new production facility most likely to be located on the East Coast. 

Thistle’s service itself offers ready-made plant-based meals delivered to customers doorsteps via a weekly subscription that can be customized based on the number of days a user needs the food. Meals include breakfast, lunch, and dinner items as well as snacks and juices.

The company said in today’s press release that part of the new Series B funding will go towards launching new features for customers, including a complimentary virtual consultation with an in-house dietician.

Meal delivery, whether ready-made meals a la Thistle or more traditional kits from the likes of Blue Apron, have enjoyed an uptick in demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has limited options for consumers in terms of eating out or finding prepared foods. As it expands, Thistle’s chief competition will be other companies that delivery ready-made healthy meals. That includes Factor75, which was recently acquired by HelloFresh, and FreshlyFit, the healthy meal line by Nestlé-owned Freshly.  

 

Ketotarian, Mushrooms and Innovation Among Kroger’s 2021 Food Trend Predictions

Grocery giant, Kroger provided its food trends recap of 2020 and predictions for 2021 over the weekend. And while the list is definitely a PR move, it does provide a little insight into where the retailer thinks food is headed over the coming year.

But before we get into Kroger’s predictions, let’s take a quick look back at what foods trended at the retailer over 2020. Kroger compiled its results from year-over-year sales growth across Kroger’s business including its roughly 2,800 retail stores as well as pickup, delivery and ship. Based on that, these foods were the big winners of 2020:

  • Zero-Calorie Soft Drinks
  • Four-Cheese Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese
  • Flavored Potato Chips (Hot & Spicy, Regional Flavors & Meal-Inspired Varieties)
  • Sauvignon Blanc Wine
  • Heavy Whipping Cream
  • Fresh Burger Patties
  • Artisan Breads & Restaurant-Style Buns
  • Bulk Individual Coffee Pods (96-Count)
  • Party-Size Bags of Variety Chocolate
  • Black Forest Ham

Snacks. Cheese. Wine. Kroger’s list does seem to accurately reflect our collective mood during the pandemic year, when most of us were locking down and not leaving the house. Perhaps what’s more interesting, however, is what’s not on that list: Plant-based foods. Or plants of any kind, really.

This lack of plant-based burgers is in contrast with larger data showing that sales of plant-based meat (Beyond Burgers, Impossible Burgers, etc.) skyrocketed during the pandemic. The animal-based meat supply chain was strained as people panic-shopped, and ethical concerns over meat processing were raised as meat packing facilities became COVID hotspots.

That there were no plant-based foods on Kroger’s list could be a function of the type of shoppers the store gets, or that the growth in plant-based foods wasn’t enough when compared with the other foods. Snack foods, in particular made a comeback during the pandemic as we all tried to find comfort where we could.

Comfort food is actually a trend that Kroger sees continuing into 2021, writing that “Easy-to-prepare comfort foods are on the rise as consumers look to balance convenience and quick preparation times with flavorful meal options.”

While plant-based foods may have been absent from Kroger’s 2020 trends list, the retailer predicts that a “ketotarian” diet will become more popular this year. As Kroger explains, a ketotarian diet is “a plant-based spin on traditional keto guidelines. Consumers can expect to find a growing selection of these plant-based, high-protein foods on grocery shelves in the year ahead.”

While we’re talking about plants, Kroger also predicts that mushrooms will play a bigger role in our diets this year, writing “Consumers should expect to see mushrooms play a starring role in a variety of new products in 2021, including blended plant-based proteins, condiments, spices, seasonings and more.” We’ve actually been watching this mushroom mania play out over the past year here at The Spoon as mushrooms and mycelium kept popping up as the backbone for new types of proteins including cuts of plant-based meat.

One of Kroger’s 2021 predictions is also near and dear to our Spoon hearts: Innovation in the fresh food aisle. Kroger said to look out for in-store hydroponic farms and plant-based coatings like Apeel that extend the shelf-life of produce among the new technologies to look out for.

A trend that Kroger didn’t mention was food-as-medicine, a space which the retailer has been a leader in. We probably shouldn’t tie this list too much into overall business strategy for the company, but it’s noticeable, given everything that is on the list.

Whether or not it’s a PR stunt, Kroger’s predictions actually seem pretty reasonable, though I wish they had predicted a few more robots, especially since they are building out all those automated warehouses.

Plant-Based E-Commerce Site PlantX Expands To US and Israel

Vancouver-based PlantX, an e-commerce site for plant-based groceries, recently announced its expansion into the US and Israel as well as new brick-and-mortar locations. I had the opportunity to speak this week with Sean Dollinger and Alex Hoffman, the co-founders of PlantX, to discuss the details of the company’s expansion news.

PlantX launched this year and has been operating its e-commerce site in Canada, and now the service is expanding to sell groceries to consumers in the United States and Israel. To accommodate these new channels, the company will be opening brick-and-mortar stores that will serve as shipment fulfillment centers. The US location will be based in San Diego, California, while the Israel location is currently undisclosed.

Hoffman emphasized that the stores will be much more than a grocery store or fulfillment center though; their primary focus will be to provide a learning center that educates consumers on a plant-based diet. The physical location will also include onsite kitchens for meal delivery service and a coffee shop serving plant-based items. To encourage the continued use of its e-commerce site, PlantX customers can actually go shop in these physical locations and can use their phones to scan QR codes and have the groceries delivered to their house.

The demand for purchasing groceries online has certainly soared during the pandemic; online grocery shopping hit a record of $7.2 billion in sales over the summer. PlantX is among a number of smaller e-commerce sites for plant-based only products like GFTO it’s Vegan, Billion Vegans, and Vegan Essentials; however, none of these companies offer physical locations that customers can visit.

Dollinger said that it is the company’s goal to have a brick-and-mortar location in every country, enabling consumers to use the e-commerce site throughout the world. In addition to the main flagship locations in each country, PlantX will be opening smaller franchise locations that will serve as grocery stores, fulfillment centers, and learning centers sometime in the future.

Pudu Server Robots Find Work in Grocery Aisles

Up to this point, when we’ve covered floor robots in grocery stores, the news has usually been about autonomous shelf scanners and floor cleaners. But as a recently released video from Pudu Robotics shows, we could soon be seeing robots that act as mobile advertising and promotional displays roaming around grocery aisles.

Amy Zhou, a Business Development Manager at Pudu Robotics, posted a video on Linkedin this week showing her company’s robots being put to work in various grocery stores around the world. The work shown in the video isn’t terribly exciting, as its mainly a lone robot carrying racks of food items that are on sale. But the move is another example of the mobile commerce trend that I predicted will have a breakout year in 2021.

Pudu’s move into grocery is reminiscent of Cheetah Mobile’s FANBOT, though FANBOT is a little more complex. Where Pudu’s robot just roams around carrying items that you then must purchase at the stores checkout, the FANBOT actually carries an inventory of different items and carries out the transaction to purchase them on the spot.

The idea is bringing commerce to where you are, rather than having you seek it out.

Pudu’s type of robotic mobile advertising could be appealing to grocery retailers. Having a mobile robot or two would give retailers another vehicle (literally) on which they could charge for placement/advertising. As a bonus, multiple, different promotions could be run in a single day. Heck, you could combine the dynamism of a Cooler Screen LED panel with the Pudu robot and have a big, bright, shiny commercial going up and down the aisles.

These types of promo robots might also find more acceptance within grocery stores themselves. Walmart ended its use of Bossa Nova’s shelf-scanning robots this year reportedly in part over concerns with how customers were reacting to the robots. There’s a difference between seeing a six-foot tall robot scanning a shelf and spotting a tray of chocolate bars headed in your direction.

Additionally, these type of self-wandering promo robots wouldn’t be taking a current job (like inventory management) away from a human, but rather adding a new one.

Plus — and this could be the biggest reason we’ll see more of Pudu’s robots in stores — at least one model is has cat-like features and makes a cute face when you pet it.

Whisk Creates Slack App to Help You Shop For Groceries At Work

Like many, I use Slack for a good chunk of the day as a way to communicate and collaborate with coworkers.

But now thanks to Whisk, I can start using the ubiquitous work communication platform as a way to manage grocery shopping lists and access recipes.

Announced via a blog post by Samsung NEXT (the company which acquired Whisk last year) head of product Travis Bogard, the Whisk app is available to anyone with Slack.

Interestingly, while there are plenty of food-related apps available to use on Slack, most of them are for things like ordering from food trucks or managing a work-group catering order. The Whisk app, from what I can tell, is the first one for recipe sharing or grocery lists.

This lack of personal meal journey management apps for Slack probably shouldn’t be surprising since it is, after all, a work tool. That said, the line between work and personal time has become blurry in these work-from-home pandemic times, and nowadays many of us are seamlessly switching back and forth between work projects and personal stuff like meal planning or grocery shopping.

So why not do it in Slack?

I decided to try the app out and added Whisk to our workplace Slack.

For anyone not familiar with Slack apps, using them means typing in command prompts reminiscent of DOS or, for anyone under 40, like those you might tap into an app like Terminal to run scripts or basic web prompts.

Once I had the app running, I used the register prompt to log into Whisk and authorize it to work with Slack. I then used the add item command to add a couple things to my grocery list. I then hopped over to my Whisk browser tab and there were the milk and eggs I had just added to the list.

I also used Whisk Slack app commands to bring up recipes and check out the items on my shopping list.

Would I use it in the future? Maybe. Since I use Slack all day, I like how easily accessible it is. That said, I’ve always found Slack apps a little annoying since every app has a different set of commands and I usually have to look them up when I use them. I also use voice assistants like Alexa to add items to my list (Whisk also has an Alexa integration), so I’m not sure this would replace that.

But if you are a Slack or Whisk user, you can try it out for yourself.

New FAA Rules Bring Burritos by Drone One Step Closer

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced its final rules around the safety of drone flying yesterday (hat tip to GeekWire). The new rules outline requirements around Remote Identification (ID) of drones, as well as spell out rules for flying drones over people and at night. The FAA’s new rules will help bring regulatory clarity to the developing drone delivery industry.

The Remote ID rule is pretty much what it sounds like, requiring drone manufacturers to include technology that “provides identification of drones in flight as well as the location of their control stations.” The rule is meant to identify specific manufacturers should something go wrong with a drone during its flight. This information will be made available to security and law enforcement agencies. Drones without Remote ID functionality will only be allowed to fly in certain areas designated by the FAA.

The second rule released yesterday was the Operations Over People and at Night rule, which covers pretty much what you’d expect. For flights over people and moving vehicles, it outlines the different categories of aircraft and the required safety precautions. Here’s an example from the FAA’s Executive Summary of the new rules:

Category 2 eligible small unmanned aircraft must not cause injury to a human being that is equivalent to or greater than the severity of injury caused by a transfer of 11 foot-pounds of kinetic energy upon impact from a rigid object, does not contain any exposed rotating parts that could lacerate human skin upon impact with a human being, and does not contain any safety defects.

Unsettlingly, the phrase “lacerate human skin” is actually used quite a bit throughout the rules summary.

In its press release, the FAA didn’t specifically mention food delivery instead issuing the following statement:

“The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson. “They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages.”

The FAA’s new rules will certainly help the nascent food delivery sector as it starts to grow. We’ve already seen drone food delivery pop up in small use cases around the U.S. throughout 2020. Walmart partnered with Flytrex for a pilot in North Carolina. Flytrex has also been doing drone delivery tests in North Dakota and North Carolina. And Rouses Market partnered with Deuce Drone to make grocery deliveries in Mobile, Alabama. And there are more on the horizon with big companies like Amazon and Google having their own drones delivery initiatives as well.

But getting past the onesie/twosie patchwork of pilot programs requires clarity of regulations from the FAA so delivery companies and drone startups know exactly how to proceed on a national level. There’s still a ways to go before we’re getting our burritos flown directly to our doorstep, but the new FAA rules will help drones take off.