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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Karma

Food Tech News: Grubmarket Acquires Boston Organics, Surplus Food App Karma Pivots to Delivery

Here are some things that have been making us feel good lately: pancakes on weekdays, video calls with family, and foodtech news.

We can’t help you with the first two, but we’ve got the latest lineup of foodtech-y stories ready to go. This week we rounded up stories about grocery e-commerce acquisitions, food waste service pivots, and curbside grocery pickup.

Grubmarket acquires Boston Organics
Grocery delivery service Grubmarket announced its acquisition of Boston Organics, an online farm-to-table delivery service, earlier this week. Boston Organics is the first east coast foothold for Grubmarket, which is based in San Francisco. According to a press release this acquisition is part of Grubmarket’s plans to expand nationwide. Over the past year alone, Grubmarket has acquired other artisanal grocery delivery services Doorganics and Eating with the Seasons.

Weis Market and Hannaford restart curbside grocery pickup
East coast grocery chains Weis Markets and Hannaford have restarted their curbside pickup services (via GroceryDive). Both retailers hit pause on curbside pickup in March as COVID-19 started spreading rapidly, but are resuming the service to cater to customers who want to avoid crowds in grocery stores. To minimize contact, cstomers are asked to remain in their vehicles during the pickup and store employees will not accept cash or paper coupons. Both grocers have stated that some items might not be available due to high demand.

Photo: Karma.

Surplus food resale platform Karma pivots to delivery + food boxes
Before COVID-19, Sweden-based startup Karma’s platform partnered with restaurants to sell their surplus food for pickup at a discount. Now, with many foodservice establishments struggling or closing down altogether, Verdict reports that Karma has pivoted to delivery. The service provides its own drivers to deliver cooked restaurant meals, priced at half off, to customers who place an order on the app. Deliveries are available on weekdays up until 7pm, within a 3km radius of the restaurant. Karma is also launching Karma Box, a fruit and vegetable box sourced from their foodservice partners.

Are In-Store Fridges for Selling Food Near its Expiration Date Becoming a Thing?

I know there’s supposed to be three of something before it becomes a trend. But there are now two startups using almost the exact same combination of apps and special fridges in grocery stores to sell food nearing its expiration date at a discount, and I don’t think we have to wait for a third.

Supermarket News reports that grocer Hy-Vee has started a pilot program with Toronto-based company Flashfood in which Hy-Vee will sell food nearing its expiration date at a discounted rate via in-store fridges. From the story:

To use Flashfood, customers download the free app (available in iOS and Android versions) and then start shopping deals on items such as meat, dairy, bread and snacks. Purchases are then made directly from their smartphone and picked up at any time from the Flashfood Zone shelves or refrigerators in the store.

If that sounds familiar, thank you for being an avid reader of The Spoon! Back in November I wrote about a partnership between Swedish appliance giant, Electrolux and food waste fighting startup (and fellow Swedes) Karma to sell food nearing its expiration date at a discounted rate. From that story:

The fridge acts as a locker/waystation where unsold food that would otherwise be thrown away is held. Karma users can purchase that food through the Karma app, then pick it up from the new smart fridge in the store. The user unlocks the fridge by displaying a QR code and shows the product at checkout to complete the transaction.

According to the press announcement, the Hy-Vee/Flashfood program is currently running in three stores in Wisconsin. The Electrolux/Karma fridge was testing in Stockholm, Sweden.

Just to be clear, I’m not accusing anyone of stealing anyone’s idea (Wasteless is another company working with grocery stores for dynamic pricing). The point is, if two companies on different sides of the globe can bring together fighting food waste with app and discounts, let’s hope there is a third, fourth, and even fifth company trying to make it happen as well.

Electrolux and Karma Team up for Smart Grocery Fridge to Reduce Food Waste

Electrolux announced today that is has partnered with startup (and fellow Swedes) Karma to create a new smart refrigerator that helps grocery stores fight food waste.

As my colleague Catherine Lamb wrote this past summer, “Karma is a mobile app that helps retailers sell excess food to consumers at super-reduced prices. The only rules are that the food can’t be past its legal sell-by date and that retailers must list it for at least 50 percent less than its original price.”

Electrolux is also an investor in Karma, and as part of that investment, the two companies agreed to partner up to find ways to fight food waste. One of those ways is this new smart refrigerator, which launched its beta today at the ICA Kvantum Liljeholmen grocery store in Stockholm, Sweden.

The fridge acts as a locker/waystation where unsold food that would otherwise be thrown away is held. Karma users can purchase that food through the Karma app, then pick it up from the new smart fridge in the store. The user unlocks the fridge by displaying a QR code and shows the product at checkout to complete the transaction.

While we haven’t used it, this actually seems like a really smart marriage of hardware and software to fight the food waste problem. It gives Karma shoppers a more streamlined user experience when purchasing food. It gives Karma some in-store advertising. And it provides stores an elegant means of keeping food that would otherwise be thrown out while weaving that experience into broader shopping trips.

Karma says their app has been downloaded 400,000 times (though didn’t mention usage). The startup works with 1,500 food-sellers (grocery stores, cafés, bakeries, etc.) and is also expanding outside of Sweden into the U.K. Electrolux already cranks out refrigerators, so if this new solution catches on with consumers, it’s not hard to see these fridges popping up in more stores and chains across Sweden and Europe.

And while it’s weird to put something as noble as fighting food waste in competitive terms, this appliance partnership with a big brand like Electrolux could give Karma an edge over rival food waste company Too Good To Go, which currently has a much bigger reach across Europe.

As noted, this is the first partnership between Electrolux and Karma. Now we’ll see if they expand the relationship into other appliances and perhaps even shoppable recipes.