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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Amazon

Amazon Alexa Expands Food Personalization Features With Launch of ‘What to Eat’

Last week, Amazon launched a new personalized meal recommendation feature for Alexa called ‘What to Eat?’. The new capability, which was part of a slate of new features for Alexa first teased at the end of September, gives users recommendations for restaurants, recipes, prepared items, and more based on their preferences.

What to Eat is an expansion of the personalized food recommendation capabilities of Alexa that the company began rolling out earlier this year with the ‘What’s for Dinner’ feature. Where What’s for Dinner offers personalized recipe ideas based on past purchase behavior, What to Eat goes a step further by recommending options based on a user’s dietary preferences and restrictions shared with Alexa.

Once a user asks, “Alexa, what should I eat?” the voice assistant will share recommendations for restaurants, recipes, prepared food, and meal kits. Users can share their preferences and restrictions by telling Alexa to “open my food preferences.” From there, they can choose a primary diet profile from many choices that include vegetarian, paleo, keto, kosher and more. They can also add various dietary preferences such as low-salt, gluten-free, low-carb, egg-free, and more.

I tried out What to Eat on my Echo Show. After asking Alexa, a screen popped up with a Blue Apron meal recommendation at the top and then buttons for restaurants, recipes, and prepared food recommendations.

Once I clicked a level down from each topline option, I got more choices from Alexa. For example, under recipes, I chose a shoppable recipe from Amazon partner SideChef. Once there, I had my choice of step-by-step instructions for the recipe, adding ingredients to a shopping list or directly to my Amazon Fresh cart.

When choosing restaurants, a ‘nearby restaurants’ screen popped up with three options less than a mile from my home. From there, I could filter by delivery, pickup, reservations, or open now.

When I clicked on prepared foods, a screen popped up with Whole Foods chicken tortilla soup as the featured item, as well as the option to filter by Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, or food type (salad, soup, vegan, etc.).

This evolution of Alexa’s meal personalization capabilities gives Amazon monetization opportunities through a user filling up their e-commerce basket with ingredients via a shoppable recipe, selling prepared foods from Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods, or by gathering a spiff for a restaurant recommendation. While not all of these opportunities are created equal – Amazon obviously gets a bigger share of the spend when customers add a recipe to their Amazon Fresh basket as compared to when a user eats out at a local restaurant – What to Eat entrenches Amazon deeper into the decision-making process of the consumer.

It also shows the uneven playing field for Amazon’s kitchen commerce efforts compared to other voice assistant players. After helping to create the category in 2015, Amazon continues to be the runaway leader in the US smart speaker market share, logging 69% of all installed speakers as of mid-2021. A good chunk of those smart assistants resides in the kitchen where users often will ask for recommendations, add things to a shopping list, and more. All that activity enables Amazon to profile us and, now, make money at every step in the meal journey.

The head of Alexa’s kitchen team, Mara Segal, talks about the new feature and how it allows Amazon to touch the meal journey from end to end in her interview for Amazon Devices’ blog:

“Customers consume roughly 20 meals for the week,” Segal said. “Finding a recipe, getting groceries, picking restaurants, and cooking a meal—it all takes time. We think customers will be excited to break out of their routines and get quick, personalized assistance. With What to Eat and our suite of Alexa Kitchen features, we can make the food journey easier end-to-end—getting that great idea, saving favorites from different food and recipe providers in one place, adding ingredients to the Alexa shopping list or cart, and cooking meal kits or recipes hands-free with Alexa’s assistance.”

Called It: Just as We Predicted, Amazon is Building a Smart Fridge

Apparently, Amazon is building a smart fridge.

That’s at least according to a report from Business Insider (paywall), who reports that Amazon is building a fridge that would utilize machine vision and other advanced technology to monitor food in the refrigerator, notify us when it’s about to expire, and automatically order & replenish items through Amazon.

Dubbed Project Pulse, the initiative is being led by the company’s physical store unit, the same group that developed Amazon Go’s just walk out technology. Other teams, such as Lab 126 (its California-based hardware team that developed the Echo) and Amazon’s grocery unit are also contributing to the effort.

Here at The Spoon, we’re not all that surprised Amazon wants to create a fridge, mostly because we (I) predicted it nearly four years ago. When I asked “Is Amazon building a smart fridge?” in 2017, I tried to connect some of the dots I saw in Amazon’s commerce and devices businesses. And let me tell you, there were a lot of dots.

Perhaps the biggest being patents filed by the company at the time. In the fall of 2017, Amazon had filed two patents for smart fridge technology: the first described a fridge that uses machine vision to detect food spoilage, and the second described a fridge that utilized an electronic nose to detect food spoilage.

From the post:

The first patent application, filed on September 14th of this year, is called “Image-Based Spoilage Sensing Refrigerator” and centers around utilizing internal cameras to detect spoiled food. The system would use both infrared and visible spectrum cameras to detect spoilage of food and then send an alert to a mobile device.

This patent application was designed to work in concert with a scent-based sensing system defined in another patent application (also filed on September 14th) called “Scent-Based Spoilage Sensing Refrigerator” that utilizes a variety of sensors to detect gasses emitted from spoiled food and then sends an alert to a mobile device.

Of course, Amazon files lots of patent applications, many for technologies that never really go anywhere. But unlike many other companies, Amazon doesn’t just do R&D and build patent war chests for nothing. If they think they can make a product and upend a market, they usually will, so a smart fridge didn’t seem all that far-fetched.

There were other reasons I suspected something was up, including the company’s interest in kitchen commerce with products like Dash, a shoppable recipe patent, and even a partnership with Kenmore to sell fridges. And a year or so later, when the company entered the appliance business with their own branded products, an Amazon smart fridge seemed even more likely.

So now that an Amazon smart fridge is a very real possibility, I’d ask this: Will it be something worth buying? I would say yes if can help consumers better manage their food inventory than existing refrigerators. Samsung, LG, and others have made some significant advances in smart fridges, but it still feels like the category hasn’t achieved its full potential in food management and waste avoidance.

In the end, I’m both cautiously optimistic and a bit skeptical about an Amazon smart fridge. Optimistic given Amazon’s proven ability to think out of the box and completely rethink an existing product category. Skeptical because the company’s innovation in hardware has often historically been not-so-subtly motivated by a desire to serve Amazon’s broader corporate goal, which is to get people to buy more stuff. Because of this, I’m worried a technically impressive Amazon smart fridge might in the end just be a big connected shopping cart.

For this prediction at least, I hope Amazon proves me wrong.

Soft Robotics Wants To Give Your Food Robot Good Eye-Hand Coordination

Football wide receivers that can catch the ball well are said to have soft hands. Food robots who use too much force grabbing delicate produce are, well, just being robots.

But now, robot system designers can turn their food robot into a veggie-shuffling Jerry Rice with the new mGrip “hand” from Soft Robotics.

The mGrip is part of a new SoftAI product suite from Soft Robotics that robot designers can add to existing systems to optimize them for handling food like meat and produce in high-volume environments. In addition to a food-grabbing hand, the SoftAI suite includes a “perception module” that pairs cameras with machine vision software that the company says will add “eye-hand coordination” to industrial robots. The on-board processing of the perception module uses machine learning to understand how to categorize and segment different types of food.

Robotics has long been used for tasks like packing food, but only in highly structured environments. Often, this meant using humans as part of the process to do things like sorting. However, advances in machine vision over the past couple of years have meant machines can essentially replace the need for humans to do some of the tasks they’ve been needed for in the past. With an off-the-shelf product like SoftAI, what companies like Amazon have probably spent millions to build now becomes more turnkey.

Beyond high-volume warehousing applications, I can also see how a platform like SoftAI could be used in more consumer-facing food robotic systems. For example, first-generation robotic food kiosks often used off-the-shelf robotic arms that required lots of customization to make them work. With new food-optimized plug-in hardware like SoftAI, small teams could accelerate their time to market and dedicate their time to other engineering problems.

You can see the mGrip and the SoftAI perception module in the video below.

Soft Robotics Introduces SoftAI™ - Accelerating the Adoption of Robotics in Food Processing

Whole Foods Adds Amazon’s Cashierless Tech

Well, we knew it was only a matter of time before this happened: Today, Whole Foods announced they are adding Amazon’s cashierless technology to two stores in 2022. In the announcement, the retailer says Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology will be an “option” for customers in their Washington, D.C.’s Glover Park and Sherman Oaks, California locations.

Ever since Amazon acquired the iconic retailer who helped pioneer the organic and less-processed focus grocery retail movement, Whole Foods has been cautious about adding touches of Amazon to the in-store experience. Sure, we’ve seen some Whole Food Locations install pick-up lockers, but the online retailer knows as well as anyone their presence can ruffle feathers.

This is probably why Whole Foods is starting slowly with cashierless. The grocer, which only just installed self-checkout in a limited number of locations starting in 2019, will offer the technology at only two locations and, I am sure, will emphasize to long-time customers accustomed to Whole Foods customer service that this latest iteration of the grocery store express aisle only just an option.

The cashierless checkout space has changed quite a bit ever since Amazon debuted its technology at the first Amazon Go in downtown Seattle in January of 2018. Since that time, a whole new cohort of cashierless tech startups has popped up as funding has flooded into the space. Now, with Whole Foods and others helping this technology go mainstream, I don’t see this space slowing down anytime soon.

Javits Center Opens Up Cashierless Cafe Powered by Amazon Tech

There’s a new cashierless checkout cafe opening at the Javits Center convention center in New York this weekend, and it’s going to be powered by Amazon’s Just Walk out technology.

According to press materials sent to The Spoon, the new Fresh and Fast cafe lets users swipe their credit card to gain entry, upon which they can grab the pre-packaged items they want and leave. There’s no need to checkout and the bill is automatically charged to their card.

More important than the actual opening of the cashierless store is the fact that Amazon is powering it. Amazon kicked off the whole cashierless store movement with the launch of its Amazon Go stores back in 2018. Since then, a number of startups such as Grabango, Trigo, Zippin and AiFi have sprung up to offer their own cashierless checkout services. This year in particular has seen a lot of activity in the cashierless checkout space with funding pouring in from investors and new cashierless stores opening.

But as all these companies duke it out with each other to win contracts to retrofit retailers’ stores, the looming threat in the background is Amazon licensing out its own cashierless solution. The opening of Fresh and Fast at Javits follows Hudson News opening up an Amazon-powered cashierless store at the Dallas Love Field Airport in March of this year. Much like IBM was to the business PC back in the 80s, could Amazon do the same with its cashierless checkout tech today? Will “you don’t get fired for buying IBM,” become “you don’t get fired for licensing Amazon’s cashierless checkout?”

The analogy is a little different because with its massive online business, Amazon takes revenue away from brick-and-mortar retailers. So real world store brands may not want to give Amazon more money by licensing its technology. But at the same time, Amazon’s technology has proven itself in public longer than its competitors. The sheer size and staying power of Amazon could actually be an incentive for retailers to pick Amazon’s cashierless checkout technology over younger startups. Retailers know Amazon’s technology works and that the company isn’t going to disappear overnight.

For those in NYC that want to check out Fresh and Fast, it’s located on the north concourse of the Javits Center.

We Need to Talk About Cashierless Checkout (Again!)

Since we just held a Spoon event this week focused on reducing waste, I thought it appropriate to recycle my headline from earlier this year: We Need to Talk About Cashierless Checkout. I’m not just being lazy, I think we legitimately need to talk about cashierless checkout (again) because so much has happened since the first time I said it — and a lot happened just this week!

Let’s start by reviewing the relevant Spoon headlines since the first time I ran that headline in February:

In the last four months, we’ve written nine cashierless checkout stories, which means that roughly every two weeks, we’re seeing sizeable news in the space. But it’s not just the number of stories. Scratch beneath the surface and some trends emerge.

Funding
There are four funding stories for four companies at different stages, operating in different locations around the world. Based in Portugal, Sensei’s round was a Seed round. Israel’s Trigo got a strategic investment from German grocer REWE. Here in the U.S., Grabango’s haul was a later-stage sizeable Series B. And Zippin, which is based in the U.S. but is powering stores in the U.S., Brazil, Japan and Russia, has turned to equity crowdfunding after previously raising institutional money. I wouldn’t call the cashierless checkout funding environment “frothy” yet, but the sustained level of activity shows that investors are interested in emerging an established solutions.

Different Approaches
Beyond the funding, look at the variety of cashierless checkout startups coming to market. SuperSmart, Imagr and WalkOut all do some type of smart shopping cart. Trigo, Grabango and now Amazon retrofit full-sized grocery stores with cameras and computer vision to achieve frictionless checkout. Zippin and AiFi focus on smaller convenience and pop-up stores. In other words, there is a lid for every pot. Retailers will have a number of cashierless checkout options to choose from that suits them.

Europe
While cashierless checkout spots are opening up across the globe, Europe is becoming a particular hotspot of activity. Imagr opened an office in Amsterdam. Sensei is in Portugal. In addition to its funding, Trigo is launching a store with REWE, and is also a partner/investor in UK-based Tesco. AiFi has partnered with Polish convenience chain, Żabka. AiFi is launching a thousand stores with Dutch retailer Wundermart. And not to be left out, Amazon opened up a location in London.

Sports
This is admittedly a small part of the overall picture, but both Zippin and AiFi launched small convenience stores at sporting venues. Zippin opened its third stadium location, this one at Barclays Center in New York, while AiFi partnered with Verizon to open a small pop-up store at the Indianapolis 500.

As I discussed back in February, there are a couple of main drivers of all this cashierless checkout news. First is the pandemic, which pushed retailers into looking for more contactless retail environments. In addition to removing a human cashier/vector of transmission from the equation, cashierless stores keep customers from congregating in line and reduce the amount of time they spend inside.

Another factor, however, is Amazon, which kicked off the whole cashierless checkout trend with its Go stores three years ago. Since then Amazon has only ratcheted things up with its smart Dash shopping carts and just this week, showed it can scale its cashierless checkout to a full-sized grocery store. Amazon’s constant drive to innovate is forcing other retailers to do the same and accelerate their own cashierless plans.

In other words, we’ll need to talk about cashierless checkout a few more times before the year is over.

More Headlines

InnerPlant Raises $5.65M to Turn Plants Into “Living Sensors” and Mitigate Crop Loss – Agtech company InnerPlant, which is changing plant DNA to create “living sensors” that mitigate crop loss, has raised $5.65 million in pre-seed and seed funding,

Upcycled Food Association Launches Open Enrollment as Upcycling Momentum Grows – This week, the Upcycled Food Association announced that it had opened the doors for anyone who wants to apply for certification.

There’s More to Food Waste Innovation Than Tech, According to ReFED’s Dana Gunders – Dana Gunders, the Managing Director and a founder of ReFED, kicked off The Spoon’s recent event by asking two important questions related to food waste: What is innovation, and what is the problem we’re trying to solve with it?

Amazon Opening Full-Sized Cashierless Checkout Grocery Store

Amazon announced today that its new Fresh grocery store opening this week in Bellevue, Washington will feature Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology. This is the first implementation of Amazon’s cashierless checkout technology in a full-sized grocery store.

The grand opening for the new Amazon Fresh is Thursday, June 17 at the Bellevue Factoria Mall. To use the new cashierless checkout technology, users scan their Amazon app or their palm (if they’ve signed up for Amazon One payment), or they insert a credit card into a turnstile upon entering. As customers shop, cameras and sensors automatically keep track of what they pick up. When it’s time to go, instead of standing in a checkout line shoppers scan their app, palm or insert their credit card into a turnstile to exit. The Just Walk Out technology tallies up the total and automatically sends the receipt.

Amazon kicked off the whole cashierless checkout movement with the launch of its first Amazon Go store back in January of 2018. Up until now, the technology has only been used in these smaller Go and Go Grocery store formats, and questions had hung over Amazon (and other players in the space) as to how big the system could scale, since most Amazon Go stores are 1,700 – 2,500 sq. feet. This new Fresh Market is 25,000 sq. feet — a significant leap for the technology. As the store size gets bigger, more cameras, sensors and computing power are needed to identify a huge number of SKUs while monitoring the actions of more shoppers.

The cashierless checkout space has been having a banner year in 2021. In the first part of the year, we saw startups emerge, funding news and partnerships formed. As we wrap up Q2, however, we are starting to see more news around larger-scale impelmention of cashierless checkout. Grabango, which has a deal with Giant Eagle, raised $39 million. Israel-based Trigo added German supermarket chain Rewe to its roster of clients. And now Amazon, which licenses out its Just Walk Out technology is in a full-sized store.

Part of the reason for all this activity in the cashierless checkout space is the pandemic, which had retailers looking for ways to reduce the amount of human-to-human interaction. Cashierless checkout reduces the number of staff interacting directly with other people, and keeps customers from congregating in checkout lines. Big supermarket chains, however, don’t move on a dime and need solutions that scale to thousands of stores immediately. We were probably already going to see a number of announcements from big retailers about cashierless checkout this year. But Amazon’s announcement today may accelerate those announcements as supermarkets look to keep Amazon at bay.

Amazon Expands Palm Payment to Go Store in New York City

Amazon announced today that its pay-with-your-palm technology, Amazon One, is now available at the Amazon Go store at 11 W 42nd St in New York City. This marks the first time the contactless payment tech has been available outside of the Seattle area.

Amazon One lets participants use their palm as a biometric key to pay for items and, in the case of Amazon Go, gain entrance into the store. To sign up, shoppers insert their credit card in an Amazon One device and hover their palm over the scanner. After that, when shopping at One-enabled stores, shoppers just hover their palm over the device at checkout to pay. Palm scans can also be associated with existing Amazon and Amazon Prime accounts.

Amazon introduced its palm payment technology back in September of last year, rolling it out to a number of Amazon-branded stores like Amazon Go and Amazon 4-Star. With its implementation at the the New York Go store, Amazon One is now available in 14 Amazon-related locations including Whole Foods Markets.

Today’s expansion to New York marks the first time Amazon’s palm payment system has left the confines of Washington state. Amazon has not been shy about its ambitions around selling the technology into third-party retailers. Getting the technology into New York will help expose it not only to Amazon shoppers, but potential retail customers as well.

Amazon One is arriving at the right time. The pandemic has retailers looking to create more contactless shopping experiences that reduce touchpoints in the store. Hovering a palm over a scanner certainly does that, as there’s no terminal for a customer to touch, or a staffer to wipe down.

The bigger question around Amazon One, however, is how willing people will be to give up their very personal biometic data to Amazon. You may not mind the e-commerce giant knowing exactly how bad your addiction to Spindrift seltzer water is, or even letting the company open up your garage so a delivery driver can place groceries in there when you aren’t home. But customers may not be willing to, err, hand over their individual palm print for Amazon to have on file.

Amazon Expands In-Garage Grocery Delivery to 5,000 Cities and Towns Nationwide

Amazon announced today that its Key by Amazon In-Garage Grocery Delivery is expanding to more than 5,000 U.S. cities and towns. Key In-Garage Delivery launched in five cities last November, and with today’s expansion will become available everywhere Amazon delivers groceries.

Amazon Key In-Garage delivery is available to Prime members shopping through Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market. To use Key, the customer must have a compatible connected smart garage door opener. When the order is placed, the customer selects “Key Delivery” for no extra charge. When the order arrives, delivery people open the smart garage door, place groceries inside, close the door and notify the customer.

Placing grocery deliveries inside a garage can have a number of benefits for the customer, including keeping food out of direct sunlight and other weather-related elements, as well as helping prevent theft by porch pirates. It also adds flexibility for customers who don’t have to be at home to wait for a delivery.

In-garage delivery followed a previous attempt by Amazon to offer in-home delivery when customers weren’t there. But customers weren’t too keen on letting strangers open their front doors and placing packages inside their homes while they were out. In-garage delivery was a bit of a social compromise. Amazon could still securely deliver packages inside a domicile while customers were out, but weren’t granted access into someone’s actual house.

Grocery delivery experienced a record year in 2020 as the pandemic pushed people into grocery e-commerce. As a result, all the major grocery retailers invested heavily in systems to meet that accelerated demand and provide faster service to customers. Amazon’s chief retail rival, Walmart, for instance, launched its Delivery+ subscription service last year and is trialing delivery to connected smart lockers that sit on a customer’s porch.

While Key In-Garage Delivery is probably not a resource-intensive program for Amazon to implement, one has to wonder if the company shouldn’t be focusing more attention on curbside pickup. Recent data from Brick Meets Click show that the majority of grocery e-commerce customers choose curbside pickup over delivery or ship-to-home options. And during its earnings call yesterday, Albertsons said that curbside pickup was up 865 percent over the course of 2020.

Prime members interested in trying out Key In-Garage Delivery can check its availability by visiting www.amazon.com/key-grocery.

Amazon Adds Pay-With-Your-Palm Service to Whole Foods Store in Seattle

Amazon announced today that it is bringing the Amazon One palm-scanning payment technology to Whole Foods stores in Seattle. The move marks the first use of the biometric system at a non-Amazon branded store.

Launched last September, Amazon One allows people to connect a credit card (and Amazon Prime account, of course) with a scan of their palm. Once scanned, customers can then pay for items at Amazon One-enabled stores simply by waving their hand over a special terminal at checkout.

As of March 2021, Amazon One was available in 12 Amazon stores in the Seattle area including Amazon Go, Go Grocery, and Amazon 4-Star. Starting today, Amazon One will be available at the Madison Broadway in Seattle Whole Foods, and the company says it will be expanding the program to seven more Seattle area Whole Foods locations in the coming months.

The addition of Amazon One at Whole Foods isn’t a surprise, given that Amazon owns Whole Foods. But it’s further illustration of how Amazon is leveraging its deep technological capabilities to reshape shopping experiences — and putting pressure on other brick-and-mortar retailers to up their own checkout experiences.

Amazon has developed a number of different systems to make checkout more frictionless. Famously, Amazon Go kicked off the era of “just walk out” cashierless checkout technology, which lets customers go into the store, grab what they want and get charged automatically upon exit. Amazon has also developed its Dash Cart, a smart shopping cart that allows for cashierless checkout at its stores.

Amazon also aims to license its various technologies to third parties. For instance, the company created a cashierless airport convenience store with the Hudson’s brand. And in the FAQ accompanying today’s Amazon One news, the company says it is in active discussions with several potential customers to use the palm payment system.

There are a number of startups looking to bring their own brand of cashierless checkout to retail (and help stave off Amazon). Companies like Zippin and Grabango install cameras and sensors to re-create the same type of just walk out shopping experience. And there are a number of smart shopping cart companies including Caper, Supersmart and Veeve.

If you want to learn more about the future of frictionless checkout at retail, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our food robotics and automation virtual summit on May 18th. We’ll have speakers from Zippin, Nomitri and many more, so get your ticket today!

Amazon Expanding it Palm Pay System to More Amazon Stores in the Seattle Area

Amazon said today via an email to The Spoon that it is bringing its Amazon One pay-with-your-palm biometric identification and payment system to an additional three physical retail locations in the Seattle area.

Launched last September, Amazon One scans a user’s palm for things like gaining entrance to a store or facilitating payment at checkout. Users just need to hold their hand over the Amazon One device and associate their palm print with a credit card and mobile phone number (or an Amazon account, of course).

With this expansion, 12 Amazon retail locations will be using Amazon One including a number of Amazon Gos, Go Grocery, Amazon 4-Star, Amazon Books and Amazon Pop-Ups.

Admittedly, the addition of Amazon One payment to just three of Amazon’s own stores is not earth-shattering news. But it adds to what has already been an incredibly busy year in the cashierless/contactless checkout space. Startups like Nomitri and IMAGR have come out of stealth. Standard Cognition raised $150 million. And AiFi partnered with Wundermart to build a thousand cashierless checkout stores.

Amazon, however, remains the 800-pound gorilla in the cashierless checkout space. It kicked off the movement in earnest with its first Go convenience stores a little more than three years ago. And Amazon is licensing its cashierless checkout tech to other retailers. Airport store chain, Hudson, recently opened its first cashierless store powered by Amazon, with plans to open more. Amazon’s marketing flat-out says the company has big plans for expanding the use of its palm payment to other venues like stadiums, restaurants and more. So it could find its way into more non-Amazon stores in the near future.

We’re also starting to see biometrics implemented in other cashierless checkout systems. Zippin’s latest store in Japan adds a layer of biometric technology from Fujitsu that allows users to scan their palm to gain entrance and facilitate payment.

Of course, it remains to be seen just how willing consumers are handing over their biometric data to Amazon. Knowing what I purchase on a regular basis is one thing. Knowing the fine details of my exact palm print? That’s quite another.

Data Analysis Shows Strong Foot Traffic Debut (and Dropoff) for Amazon’s Woodland Hills Fresh Store

It was by no means high on the list of disappointments in 2020, but I was still bummed that I couldn’t visit Amazon’s first Fresh grocery store in Woodland Hills, CA when it soft launched in August of this year.

It was Amazon’s first full, physical supermarket (the company had opened smaller scale Go Grocery stores before) and excitement was high. What types of Amazon-type technology would Jeff Bezos bring to the grocery sector?

Evidently a lot of people were keen on checking out Amazon, Fresh, according to data released this week from Placer.ai, a company that uses mobile phone location data to gather and analyze foot traffic to real world retail locations.

According to Placer, Amazon Fresh saw a surge of customers in the first weeks it opened to the public in September. In a blog post this week, outlining its findings, Placer wrote:

The first week saw visits on par with two local players with very strong visits rates, Trader Joe’s and Ralphs. But, Amazon Fresh quickly burst ahead with four of the next five weeks seeing the location drive over 5,000 more visits per week than either of those two competitors.

Amazon Fresh was also getting roughly the same number of visits per visitor as comparable grocers. Ralph’s and Trader Joe’s were seeing 2.4 and 2.2 visits per visitor respectively, while the new Amazon Fresh was already seeing 2 visits per visitor, indicating that people were having a good enough experience at Fresh to come back.

Placer reports that one of the reasons Amazon Fresh enjoyed so much foot traffic is because of the store’s “True Trade Area.” When picking a location for a store, a grocer might consider its main customer base to be within a straight five-mile radius of that store. But Placer’s data gathering shows that this strict geographic limitation isn’t accurate, and that a store’s shopping base can actually come from further out. This expanded reach is what Placer calls the True Trade Area.

As you can see from this map, Amazon Fresh Woodland Hills’ True Trade area actually covers a large swath around Los Angeles, so it was pulling customers from outside of Woodland Hills.

I was curious about some of Placer’s findings, so I spoke with Ethan Chernofsky, Placer.ai’s VP of Marketing (and author of the Amazon blog post), by phone this week. My first question was whether some of Fresh’s sizeable foot traffic could be attributable to curbside pickup. Amazon.com’s customer base it so huge, perhaps people were just ordering groceries online and picking them up at the Fresh store, even if that meant driving to another part of town. But Chernofsky said that was unlikely, given the length of time people were staying at the Fresh location.

But while Amazon Fresh enjoyed an early boom in foot traffic, starting in October, Amazon Fresh saw its numbers fall. As the Chernofsky detailed his analysis “Between October and November, the Amazon Fresh True Trade Area decreased by 27.1%, just as monthly visits declined 27.6%. On the other hand, Ralphs saw visits rise 13.7% as its own True Trade Area declined by 7.1%.”

One explanation for the drop could be that the excitement wore off, and what was once shiny and new was no longer shiny and new. Chernofsky doesn’t think that’s it though. As he wrote in a corporate blog post “the close relationship between visits per visitor metrics between the top local grocers indicates that this location was actually succeeding in driving repeat visits even among the launch buzz.”

Instead, Chernofsky attributed the drop to the COVID resurgence in Los Angeles this fall. As the virus reemerged, travel and work was limited, so there was less cross shopping, or tacking on a visit to the grocery store during an errand.

Amazon Locations Around Los Angeles

Another factor could be the fact that Amazon added three additional Fresh locations in Los Angeles since the opening of the first Woodland Hills location. The Northridge and North Hollywood locations both opened in mid-November and seem like they would draw from the same pool of customers as the Woodland Hills location’s True Trade Area.

Regardless, data like that from Placer is worth looking at to see how well Amazon is doing as it starts its forays into real world grocery. I’m still looking forward to a time when I can see the Amazon Fresh stores in person.