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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

grocery delivery

Hey, New Yorkers! You Have a Bunch of Dark Delivery Grocery Stores. Are You Using Them?

Bloomberg ran a story over the weekend about Russian grocery delivery service, Samokat, expanding into New York City this August. The U.S. operations will go by the name Buyk and will use the dark-store, limited-delivery radius model that has become all the rage this year.

According to Bloomberg, Buyk already has agreements to open up a number of dark stores that will each deliver to a roughly one-mile radius. The company says that because it developed the technology three years ago and already has experience scaling in Russia, it will have an advantage over its competitors here in the States.

And it will be facing competition when it opens up in New York. By our count, Buyk will be the fourth such, small, speedy, grocery delivery service operating in the Big Apple by the end of this summer, joining Fridge No More, Gorillas and JOKR. Interstingly, Buyk and Gorillas are both foreign companies (Russia and Germany, respectively) that are looking to gain an early foothold in the U.S. early on in the speedy grocery delivery game before more homegrown competitors spring up.

My question for our New York-based Spoon readers is: Are you using these services? Granted they are really new so you may not have had time to check them out yet. JOKR just launched in June, Gorillas launched at the end of May and Fridge No More in October of last year. Given the newness of these services and their small, neighborhood-focused approach, a lot of people probably still haven’t learned about or have access to this new type of on-demand-groceries-in-less-than-fifteen-minutes service.

But at least one New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Kadet, appears to be hooked after testing Gorillas, Fridge No More and JOKR. Earlier this month, Kadet wrote:

My conclusion? Whether you need a full grocery delivery or just a carton of milk for the pancake batter you’ve already started, you can’t go wrong with any of the three. They all offer a user-friendly app, no minimum delivery, decent prices and service that lives up to their speed guarantees.

As I’ve written before, on-demand speedy grocery delivery has the potential to upend the way we shop for groceries. Whether we need a last-minute ingredient, are throwing an impromptu party or are just feeling lazy, the ability to summon our food and drinks with a few taps could alter our relationship to grocery retail. This, in turn, could put pressure on existing large retailers like Albertsons and Kroger to change the way they do business. That is, if these new speedy upstarts can scale economically. Which means they’ll need a lot of customers in those small delivery areas.

Which is why I’m asking, New Yorkers, are you using any of these services? Leave a comment or drop us a line and let us know!

Uber, DoorDash Moving Further Into Grocery Delivery Space

Uber is acquiring the remaining 47 percent in grocery delivery service Cornershop, according to Uber’s most recent 8-K filing, released at the end of last week. The all-stock transaction is expected to close next month. 

The deal follows Uber’s acquisition in 2019 of a majority stake in Chile-based Cornershop. At the time, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi had already said grocery was an area he wanted to see his company delve deeper into. One pandemic and nearly two years later, the company has done just that. In April of 2020, the company expanded its grocery delivery service to international locations, including a partnership with Carrefour in France. In July of 2020, Uber launched grocery delivery via Cornershop in Canada and Latin America as well as parts of the U.S. Separate from Cornershop, Uber also expanded its grocery service into Manhattan. 

Uber’s grocery service expansion has come amid record levels of online grocery shopping in the wake of the pandemic. While numbers have leveled off somewhat since the height of lockdowns in the U.S., stats nonetheless highlight grocery e-commerce’s continued popularity. For example, Brick Meets Click data showed that online grocery sales for pickup or delivery were $6.6 billion in April of this year. That’s down from the $7.1 billion in grocery e-commerce sales in March of this year, but up from $5.3 billion in April 2020.

Restaurants, meanwhile, are opening back up to increasing levels of foot traffic and enthusiasm on the part of consumers for dining out. Those factors could bring restaurant deliveries via Uber Eats and others slightly down in the coming months. Additionally, some restaurants, now back open at full capacity, are dropping the delivery apps they relied on over the last year, having finally had enough of the high commission fees these services charge restaurants. Though some delivery services have responded with tiered pricing models for those commission fees, Uber Eats, DoorDash, and others have long known they need to diversify in order to stay on the path to that elusive profitability.

And speaking of DoorDash, it too had an announcement this week around grocery. The company announced a partnership with grocery chain Albertsons to offer same-day delivery from about 2,000 stores. The deal includes Safeway, Vons, and Jewel-Osco stores. The service will be powered by DoorDash Drive, the company’s white-label platform. 

Online Grocer Boxed Bulks up by Going Public via SPAC

Boxed, a grocery e-commerce site that specializes in selling bulk items, is going public via special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Announced today, the deal is being done via merger with Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp., and the combined company will be valued at roughly $900 million. To date, Boxed had raised $243 .6million in funding.

Founded in 2013, Boxed is kinda like a Costco without the membership requirement, selling bulk goods to both consumers and businesses. In addition to selling stuff online, Boxed also licenses out its order fulfillment and logistics technology to other retailers. In January of this year, the company entered into a multi-year partnership with Aeon Group, one of Asia’s largest retail conglomerates. (Aeon also led Boxed’s $100 million round of funding back in 2018.)

Boxed’s decision to go public via SPAC comes at a time of drastically increased interest in grocery e-commerce. COVID drove record amounts of people into online grocery shopping last year, and while those numbers have come down as the pandemic recedes, Coresight Research data shows that more than one-third of online grocery shoppers will keep up the new habit post-pandemic. Additionally, the ship-to-home category of grocery e-commerce that Boxed is in has hovered around $2 billion from month to month over the last year, according to Brick Meets Click.

All of this increased interest in online grocery shopping also means Boxed is facing increased pressure on a number of fronts. Not only does Boxed need to compete with traditional retailers like Walmart, which is rapidly expanding its delivery options and automating its fulfillment, but there is a raft of well-funded newcomers to contend with as well. On the ship-to-home side, companies like Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market both raised sizeable rounds of funding this year to expand. And on the smaller end of the spectrum, startups like Gopuff, Fridge No More and JOKR promise grocery delivery in as little as 15 minutes.

Boxed will now have additional funding to better compete. According to today’s press announcement Boxed “is expected to receive $334 million in net cash proceeds from a combination of Seven Oaks’ cash in trust of approximately $259 million, assuming no redemptions by Seven Oaks’ public stockholders, as well as a $120 million fully committed private placement financing.” Boxed CEO Chieh Huang will remain in charge of the new entity.

Speedy Grocery Delivery. Big Money. Flink and Getir Each Raise Big Rounds of Funding

Just when you thought investment in the European grocery delivery space couldn’t get any frothier, both Flink and Getir announced massive rounds of new funding today. Germany-based Flink raised a $240 million Series A round, while Turkey’s Getir announced that it has raised $550 million.

Both companies operate dark stores that are set up in city neighborhoods and carry limited inventory. Because of where these hubs are located and the tight delivery radius, customers can receive their order within minutes of placing it. The entire space has been white hot since the start of the year with a number of players launching and getting funded.

Flink, for instance, just launched six months ago, and announced in March that it had raised $52 million. Reuters reports that its new funding round announced today was led by Prosus, BOND and Mubadala Capital. Flink already operates 50 dark stores that already reach more than 3 million customers, and the company says it it opening up a new store every two days.

In addition to its big funding haul, Flink also said that it has partnered with the German supermarket chain Rewe group. According to TechCrunch, the deal will make Flink Rewe’s preferred partner for smaller grocery deliveries. This will be interesting to watch because part of the appeal of the smaller dark store is that they are small. That makes it faster to assemble an order and get it out the door. Will Rewe set up a special mini-section within its stores for Flink, or will Flink delivery people just need to sprint through existing Rewe supermarkets in order to get deliveries out on time?

Flink’s $240 million seems quaint compared with the money Getir has raised. The $550 million the company announced today follows the $300 million it raised in March of this year. The Financial Times writes that Getir, which only just expanded outside of Turkey this past January, is now valued at $7.5 billion. Getir CEO, Nazım Salur, told the FT that his company raised all this money this year is that Getir plans to expand to the U.S. this year rather than later. CNBC reports that Silver Lake, Mubadala, Sequoia and Tiger Global all participated in the round.

While Getir won’t find as much competition here in the U.S., the speedy grocery delivery space is starting to get busy, especially in New York City. Fridge No More, JOKR and Gorillas now all operate in various part of the Big Apple. And speaking of Gorillas, Sifted writes that the German delivery company, which just raised $290 million in March is looking at a secondary share sale in the hopes of raising another $1 billion.

As I’ve written before, while 10-minute grocery delivery is still new, it is poised to change our very relationship with food shopping. If these services take off, it could make grocery shopping more like a utility that you turn on whenever you need something, as often as you need it. These companies still have to prove they can scale and make money when people order just one avocado. Flink, Getir and all these startups may feel like Kozmo.com 2.0 to those old enough to remember, but as I wrote today, I don’t think that’s the case.

I do, however, think we’ll see more funding news, especially for new speedy delivery startups here in the U.S.

JOKR Joins the Speedy Grocery Delivery Fray in NYC

We are just about halfway through the year and the emerging food tech trend so far in 2021 is definitely fast grocery delivery from dark stores. New York City, which already has Fridge No More and Gorillas, can now add JOKR, which launched today, to its roster of super fast on-demand grocery delivery service.

JOKR’s service may sound familiar to avid Spoon readers. The startup operates a number of delivery-only grocery store hubs scattered across New York City. These smaller stores don’t carry as many items as a full-on supermarket, and only have a delivery radius of about a mile. Once an order is placed, JOKR fulfills and delivers it to the customer in under 15 minutes. There is no minimum order, no delivery fee and all delivery people are employees of the company.

Unlike rivals Fridge No More and Gorillas, however, JOKR isn’t just operating in Brooklyn neighborhoods. The company’s current delivery zones include most of Manhattan below 35th street, Williamsburg, and Long Island City, and Queens. More neighborhoods will be added in the coming weeks, and Zach Dennett, Co-Founder of JOKR told me by phone last week that the company will be expanding to Boston “very soon.”

Speedy grocery delivery has exploded over the past six months around the globe. In Europe, services like Weezy, Glovo, and Getir have all raised money to expand their services. Here in the U.S., Gopuff raised $1.5 billion for its half hour delivery, 24 hours a day, and in San Francisco, Food Rocket launched its delivery in San Francisco last week.

I asked Dennett why he thought this new market category was erupting so quickly. “The pandemic has accelerated customers’ learning to shop for groceries online,” he said, “as soon as they’ve gotten to experience 15 minute delivery? That’s what they want.” Dennett also said that the pandemic caused a depression in commercial real estate, so companies are able to lease store locations much more cheaply than before.

During JOKR’s beta right now, Dennett said that a typical customers first uses JOKR because they forgot something (Think: milk, eggs, etc.). Once they use the service, however, Dennett said those customers then transition into more traditional grocery shopping, increasing their basket size.

The big challenge for JOKR, according to Dennett, is inventory management. “We have this very interesting problem,” Dennett said, “We have to achieve every customer need in the fewest SKUs possible,” because the stores themselves are not that big. Plus, the inventory for each neighborhood is different, which means JOKR has to cover a lot of bases in an efficient manner. “We have to have a pasta that you’re happy with,” Dennett said, “Are you brand loyal, are you shape loyal? Are you interested in gluten-free or kosher?”

The bigger question for JOKR and all of these services now is whether customers will change up their grocery habits and switch over to speedy delivery.

Report: Instacart Looking to Add Automated Grocery Fulfillment

According to a story out in Bloomberg today, Instacart is looking to create automated fulfillment centers, which would use robots to assemble grocery orders. These fulfillment centers would either be standalone or attached to an existing grocery store.

From the Bloomberg story:

Under one proposal, Instacart would create a network of stand-alone fulfillment centers that would handle more than 3,500 orders a day with more than 100,000 units sold, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. More than 700 robots and about 160 people would do the work, with the machines fetching most of the items and workers gathering fresh and perishable food. The installation would cost $20 million, with annual maintenance costs of $380,000 a year. A second option is a smaller 25,000-square foot attached to a store that would handle more than 700 orders a day totaling 22,000 items. It would have more than 150 robots, 40 workers and would cost $6.5 million to set up and $270,000 a year to maintain, according to the documents.

The reason for this automation plan is simple: speed. Speed of order fulfillment is becoming more critical to a grocery retailer’s success than ever. The pandemic forced a lot of people into trying online grocery shopping last year, and while overall grocery e-commerce numbers have dipped since the record highs of 2020, the habit appears to be sticking with people. Brick Meets Click data showed that online grocery sales for pickup or delivery were $6.6 billion in April of this year. That’s down from the $7.1 billion in grocery e-commerce sales in March of this year, but up from $5.3 billion in April 2020.

All those online grocery orders need to be picked and packed before they get to the customer. Instacart’s current solution is to have human gig workers (Instacart’s “Shoppers”) do this. But a robotic fulfillment center can assemble a grocery order in minutes, which is much faster than a person wandering the aisles looking for particular brands of peanut butter and loaves of bread.

This need for speed is why so many existing grocery retailers are investing in automated fulfillment. Kroger recently opened up the first of its standalone, automated Customer Fulfillment Centers powered by Ocado’s robotic technology. And both Walmart and Albertsons are expanding their use of automated fulfillment centers as well.

Instacart is obviously feeling the time crunch. Earlier this month, it launched a 30-minute delivery service of its own, but that service is only available in 15 cities right now. But Instacart faces pressure from a new wave of delivery-only startups vying for your speedy delivery dollar. Gopuff averages half-hour delivery times and operates 24 hours a day. And startups like Fridge No More and Gorillas offer delivery with no minimum order in just 10 – 15 minutes. No wonder Instacart is eyeballing automating some of its processes.

Of course, any talk of automation immediately brings up the question of jobs and who will get replaced. It’s a big, ongoing discussion around the push and pull of innovation, equality and what kind of society we want to create. In the case of Instacart, it’s a natural question to ask as the company swelled its gig shopper ranks to more than 500,000 shoppers during the height of the pandemic last year. What happens to all of those people when the robots come in?

We reached out to Instacart for comment on the Bloomberg story and received the following emailed statement:

We’re constantly exploring new tools and technologies that support the needs of the 600 retailers we partner with and further enable their businesses to grow and scale over the long-term. Shoppers are and will continue to be central to Instacart and our service, and any suggestion otherwise is wholly inaccurate.

Bloomberg writes that Instacart hasn’t signed on any retail partners for its automated fulfillment plans as of yet, and as of right now any speculation around Instacart’s automation plans is just that, speculation. Instacart is undoubtedly exploring a number of different technological options as it marches towards its inevitable IPO, and those plans will most likely include robots of some kind.

Food Rocket Raises $2M for 15 Minute Grocery Delivery in San Francisco

Add Food Rocket to the growing list of companies offering speedy, on-demand grocery delivery. The startup, which has launched its service in San Francisco, announced today that it has raised $2 million in funding from AltaIR Capital, Baring Vostok fund and AngelsDeck group of business angels.

Food Rocket is similar to other upstart on-demand grocery delivery services like Gorillas and Fridge No More in that it operates small, delivery-only “dark” stores in different neighborhoods. Shoppers use the Food Rocket mobile app to order groceries or ready-to-eat meals, which are delivered within 10 – 15 minutes. Right now, Food Rocket is available from 9 a.m – 9 p.m. in 20 different neighborhoods in San Francisco including SoMa, South Park, Mission Bay, Japantown, Hayes Valley and more. There is no minimum order requirement and no delivery fee.

Dark store-based, on-demand speedy grocery delivery is emerging as one of the big stories of 2021. In Europe especially, a number of such startups have raised hundreds of millions in funding including Getir, Glovo and the aforementioned Gorillas. In the U.S., Gopuff raised $1.5 billion for half hour delivery 24 hours a day, DoorDash is opening its own dark convenience stores and Fridge No More and Gorillas are both now operating in NYC. All of this activity has put time pressure on existing grocery delivery services like Instacart, which launched its own 30 minute delivery service in select cities this week.

For its part, Food Rocket is really looking to take off this year. While it’s starting off in San Francisco, the company plans to open 150 dark stores on the west coast, each capable of servicing at least 25,000 households.

Instacart Launches 30-Minute Delivery in Select Cities

Instacart announced today that it is rolling out 30-minute grocery delivery in 15 of its markets across the U.S. through a number of its retail partners. The launch is part of a new “Priority Delivery” service that will also include 45 and 60 minute delivery for more customers in more cities nationwide. The move towards faster delivery comes amid mounting pressure from a new crop of startups promising delivery of groceries in as little as ten minutes.

According to the press announcement, Instacart’s 30-minute delivery will be available in 15 of the largest cities in the U.S. including Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. The new service will be available at more than 300 store locations from retailers including Ralphs, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market and Stater Bros. This half hour delivery will expand to more cities and retailers in the coming months. The company didn’t say how much more Priority Delivery will cost, but Grocery Dive reports the company expects to “add a small, incremental fee for the service that will be dynamic and vary according to market conditions.”

For grocery delivery, two-hour delivery is fast becoming too long to wait. New services from the likes of Gopuff, which raised $1.5 billion earlier this year, promise an average delivery time of 30 minutes, 24 hours a day. Additionally, there is a raft of new smaller, delivery-only grocery stores like Fridge No More and Gorillas opening up deeper inside residential neighborhoods that promise on-demand delivery in 10 to 15 minutes. Right now, Fridge No More and Gorillas are only available in select New York City neighborhoods, but Fridge No More doesn’t require a minimum order and does not charge a delivery fee, and Gorillas has no minimum order and flat $1.80 delivery fee.

If these new groceries-as-a-utlity services catch on, it’s not hard to imagine them quickly spreading to other densely populated urban areas. Operationally speaking, they don’t cost a tremendous amount to operate. The stores can be small, don’t have to be pretty (because they aren’t open to the public), and because they are in specific neighborhoods, they can customize inventory to match that area’s demand.

In internet time, Instacart is already an elder statesman in the grocery delivery game. Now we’ll see if it’s move towards faster delivery can help it stave off the rising competition.

Gorillas is Bringing its 10-Minute Grocery Delivery to the U.S. Next Week

Germany-based Gorillas is launching its speedy grocery delivery service here in the U.S. on May 30. The service will provide on-demand delivery of groceries in 10 minutes or less in New York City, starting in Bushwick, parts of Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn, Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill.

Gorillas is part of a new wave of dark, delivery only grocery stores that are set up in dense residential areas. These stores carry fewer items than a supermarket, but because they are embedded in neighborhoods and have a limited delivery radius,they can process and fulfill and deliver orders quickly. A number of these speedy delivery stores have gotten funding throughout 2021, including Weezy in the U.K., Getir in Turkey, and Glovo in Spain. Gorillas has been among the most funded, having raised $335 million.

We are just starting to see this small, speedy, delivery only store model emerge in the U.S. Gopuff raised $1.5 billion this year to expand its 24-hour convenience store-like delivery service. In New York City, Gorillas will face more direct competition from Fridge No More, which operates basically the same type of store in the Williamsburg, Park Slope and Gowanus neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

As we’ve written before, all of these super-fast grocery stores have the potential to change our relationship with grocery shopping. Instead of weekly or twice-weekly trips to the store, getting groceries becomes more like a utility that you turn on whenever you need something at that moment. Snacks, milk, wine, whatever can be brought to your door in less time than it takes to put on your shoes and socks and get in the car.

Of course, this new model will only work in certain locations. It’s no coincidence that both Gorillas and Fridge No more operate in New York City. It’s a dense, urban environment with a lot of potential customers in a small geographic area. Ten-minute delivery wouldn’t work as well in more rural areas where houses are spread out. We’ll also have to watch and see how much equity is a part of these startups’ expansion plans. Will they only be delivering to affluent areas? Will New York City be a patchwork of delivery zones that exclude lower-income neighborhoods?

For it’s launch in NYC, Gorillas is teaming up with the non-profit Rethink Food to collect potential food waste from warehouses and turn it into meals for distribution through other community-based organizations.

Those living in its service areas will be able to try Gorillas out for themselves starting this Sunday. All orders will carry a flat delivery fee of $1.80 and there is no minimum order. Hours of operation at launch will be 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Instacart Expands EBT SNAP Payments to Three More Grocers, Now Available at More Than 4,000 Stores

Online grocery delivery service Instacart announced today an expansion of its EBT Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payment integration to three new retailers: Publix, The Save Mart Companies and Price Chopper/Market 32. This boosts Instacart’s EBT SNAP availability by more than 1,500 stores across 15 states. Once complete, Instacart will offer EBT SNAP payment options in more than 4,000 stores across 38 states and Washington D.C.

From today’s press release announcing the news:

EBT SNAP is now available at all Publix locations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The Save Mart Companies – including Save Mart, Lucky California, Lucky and FoodMaxx banners – is now available across California and Nevada, making them the first Northern California retailer to offer EBT SNAP online. Price Chopper/Market 32 is now available across its New York stores, and will soon expand to its Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont locations in the coming weeks. 

Instacart began accepting EBT SNAP payments in pilot program with grocery retailer ALDI back in October 2020. That program expanded to more than 2,000 ALDI locations nationwide. Earlier this year, Instacart announced EBT SNAP payments program Food Lion stores.

The Center on Budget Policy and Priorities writes that 38 million people in the US, or 12 percent of the country’s population receive SNAP benefits. Until a couple of years ago, those on the SNAP program were unable to use their benefits to buy groceries online. In April of 2019, the USDA announced a pilot program allowing SNAP participants to purchase groceries digitally.

Instacart’s expansion also comes on the heels of USDA announcing this week that it is expanding the Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) program to provide food to kids over the summer who would otherwise get free meals at school. According to NPR, the P-EBT program takes the value of the meals kids would normally receive at school ($6.82 per weekday) and puts that on a debit or existing SNAP card to be used at grocery stores.

Increasing access to online grocery e-commerce to those on SNAP is an important step to begin bringing about more equity to our food system. Being able to buy groceries online for pickup and delivery became even more critical during the pandemic, when trip to the grocery store could literally get you sick.

It should be noted that EBT SNAP money can only be used to buy food, it cannot be put towards Instacart’s delivery fees or tips. Those add-ons can get expensive and may price out those who could use the convenience of Instacart the most. As I’ve written before, it would be nice if Instacart, which has raised $2.7 billion, put more resources towards solving issues around fees and tips for those on SNAP. The company has taken what amounts to a baby step on that front as Instacart says it will waive delivery or pickup fees through June 16, 2021 on up to the first three EBT SNAP orders for each customer.

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.

Egypt: Grocery Delivery Service Appetito Raises $450K Seed Round

Cairo-based grocery delivery service Appetito has raised a $450,000 Seed round of funding, reports Business Africa Online. Ahmed Al Alola and a group of Saudi Angel investors led the round along with Afropreneurs Fund, with participation from Jeda Capital.

Formed in March of 2020, Appetito originally started out with a chain of delivery-only (or “dark”) grocery stores that offered next-day and pre-scheduled grocery delivery service. The company recently pivoted to a more on-demand model, offering delivery of 1,000 SKUs in 60 minutes or less to certain parts of Cairo.

Appetito’s funding is the first we’ve covered for an Africa-based grocery startup this year, but it is certainly part of a larger trend we’ve been following. Grocery-related startups (grocery delivery in particular) are hot with investors all over the world right now.

In Europe, Gorillas, Getir, and Glovo have each raised nine-digit funding rounds for their particular fast grocery delivery services. In the U.S. goPuff raised $1.5 billion to scale out its chain of dark convenience stores. And in China, grocery app Xingsheng Youxuan raised $2 billion and Nice Tuan raised $750 million

A big reason for the boost in grocery app funding is the global pandemic, which pushed a record number of people into grocery e-commerce. With various lockdowns enforced in different parts of the world throughout 2020, people limited trips outside their homes. Grocery apps and delivery services became a way to help cut down on human-to-human interaction when getting food.

As vaccinations continue to roll out in different countries, We will have to wait and see if consumers keep up with the online grocery or return once again to stores in-person. One thing is for sure, post-pandemic, there will be a lot more grocery delivery options for people than ever before.

For its part, Appetito said it will use its new funding to expand across Egypt and beyond.