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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Safeway

Albertsons Partners with Tortoise for Remote Controlled Robot Delivery

Grocery giant Albertsons announced today that it has partnered with Tortoise to pilot remote-controlled robot grocery delivery at two Safeway stores in Northern California.

Tortoise is a little different from other players in the robot delivery space. First, the Tortoise bot is bigger than other rover bots. It can carry 120 pounds and is meant to haul a week’s worth of groceries. Second, the Tortoise is not meant for on-demand delivery, but rather scheduled drop offs (like a weekly grocery order). Finally Tortoise is different because it is eschewing autonomous driving for full teleoperation of its robots, meaning there is a human always remotely in control as the robot travels from store to door.

Tortoise Co-Founder and President, Dmitry Shevelenko, told me by phone today that Safeway will be using the second generation Tortoise bot, which has improved functionality and a flatbed carrying platform. Orders will be placed inside Safeway-branded containers that have Bluetooth locks. Eventually, Shevelenko said that these containers will be motorized, which will allow them to slide off the flatbed of the robot and sit outside a person’s home so groceries can be dropped off even when someone isn’t there.

Safeway’s first Tortoise tests will be in the northern California towns Tracy and Windsor. As Shevelenko pointed out, these suburban locations are actually significant because it shows robot delivery is “not just an urban phenomenon.” This type of suburban location is also being targeted by Refraction and its rugged three-wheeled, bike lane-riding robot.

During these Safeway tests, Tortoise robots will be accompanied by humans, which is not uncommon as city and local government figure out how to safely deploy robots on public city sidewalks. For instance, Postmates’ autonomous Serve robot still has a human escort while making deliveries in the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The Tortoise partnership is just the latest in a string of automation moves for Albertsons. The company is expanding the use of robotic micro-fulfillment of e-commerce orders in the Bay Area, and more recently, it started testing a robotic kiosk in Chicago for automated curbside pickup.

Tortoise is the latest robot delivery company to officially hit the road making commercial deliveries. In addition to Postmates and Refraction, Starship and Kiwibot are also scurrying around Modesto and San Jose, respectively. For a broader picture of the robot delivery space, check out The Delivery Robot Market Report I wrote for our Spoon Plus member service.

Albertsons Pilots Temperature-Controlled Lockers to Expand Pickup Options

Albertsons announced today that it will pilot temperature-controlled lockers as an added pickup option for its grocery customers.

The lockers, delivered by Bell and Howell, are modular, can be installed either inside or outside and feature dynamic temperature control to accommodate various items placed in them. Customers will see this new “PickUp” option from participating stores when they shop via Albertsons website or mobile app. Customers placing an order will receive a unique code they use to unlock the self-serve locker.

Grocery retailers could soon be facing a double whammy of demand, given the continued use of e-commerce, thanks to the pandemic (and flu season!) and the impeding holidays. During the early days of the pandemic, we saw the strain as retailers couldn’t keep up with demand for grocery delivery. Though those systems seem to have improved, grocers like Walmart and Target have vastly expanded curbside pickup options to provide more flexibility for customers. Adding self-serve lockers gives customers even more options for getting their food while relieving increased demand pressure placed on the grocers.

Delivery lockers like the ones Albertsons is installing are starting to become a trend. The winner of last week’s Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase was Minnow Technologies, which makes IoT-enabled food delivery lockers for places like offices, residential buildings and restaurants.

Amazon pioneered the pickup locker, many of which were at grocery stores, ironically. Though those were for general Amazon packages, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Amazon adding similar temperature-controlled pickup lockers at its new chain of Amazon Fresh and Go Grocery stores.

The first Albertsons PickUp lockers will be installed at select Jewel-Osco locations in Chicago, with more coming to San Francisco Bay Area Safeways later this year.

Thank You, Walmart and Safeway, for Keeping Us Fed. Now Fix Your Confusing and Misleading E-Commerce

Grocery stores have been a bright spot in this otherwise dark time of global pandemic. Store workers are braving an on-edge public and risking infection to stock shelves or come out to our homes to deliver groceries. I appreciate and thank them for all their hard work.

So it’s not on the front lines where grocery stores have an issue right now. Instead, it’s on the back end, in the way big grocery retailers manage and communicate about e-commerce orders, where the problems seem to be happening.

Like millions of others, my family has been self-isolating for a couple of weeks, which means more grocery shopping online. I’ve used Safeway for delivery and Walmart for curbside pickup. Both have problems with the way they relay information about out-of-stock items.

Before going off on too much of a rant, I should note that I’m extremely lucky. My wife and I are still employed, we are sufficiently stocked with food, and if need be, we can easily and safely go to an actual grocery store. But there are a lot of people in worse off situations, and those people need a consistent and reliable method for ordering groceries from home.

I also understand that we are in unprecedented times, and as such, people are stocking up/hoarding, so some items are just aren’t available. I have yet to find toilet paper anywhere online, and evidently everyone is baking loaves of sourdough, so there’s a run on flour.

The problems I’ve encountered with Safeway and Walmart is that those platforms accept and process my online order, leading me to believe all items are in stock and that I’ll get everything I need/want. Then, literally a couple hours before the scheduled pickup or delivery time, I get notifications telling me some items are out of stock and I won’t receive them.

In the case of the Safeway, it was a delivery order that had been placed a week and half prior. So during that time, I assumed my entire order would arrive and didn’t make any other plans to get groceries. Thankfully, the only things the store was out of were flour and yeast (to make bread, he admitted, sheepishly), and not more necessary staples like eggs or milk. But there was a gap of a week and a half in between the time I placed the order and the delivery date. At some point in there, Safeway should have communicated that items are out of stock so I could figure something else out.

The same thing happened with Walmart when I ordered food for curbside pickup. The system accepted my order the day before, leading me to believe everything was a-okay! Then the next day, shortly before I drove to the store for pickup I got an email from Walmart that basically said, “Just kidding! We’re out of a bunch of stuff you ordered.” Some of the items, like toilet paper, I kinda figured might disappear, but there were also things like fruits and vegetables in there that suddenly couldn’t be fulfilled. This was more baffling because Walmart is a logistics and supply chain monster. Why, then, was the online ordering so far off from reality in the 24-hour period between when I placed my order and when I picked it up?

Again, the reason for this whole rant is that as we are told to shelter in place and avoid crowds (especially if you’re older), e-commerce will become increasingly important, depending on how long this outbreak lasts. It’s critical that people can feel confident in the online orders they place. I’m fortunate in that I have the time and means to compensate if something goes awry. But there are lots of people who don’t, and lots of people who can’t go into the store because they have young kids, or are sick who will rely on online grocery shopping. If it’s too difficult to align store inventory with demand at a store, then retailers should improve and clarify messaging around orders so that people understand that what they receive may change, and if it does, give them ample time to either prepare for the outage or make substitutions.

For the most part, online grocery shopping is great! And I really do appreciate all the work Walmart and Safeway are putting in quickly to make it happen. We just need to make some changes to make sure we aren’t worse off in these worst of times.

We’re spending every day tracking the impact of COVID-19 on the world of food. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our analysis and hear stories from the front lines.

Online Grocery Delivery Still has a Produce Problem

Despite writing about food technology (and the evolution of food retail in particular), I held off on getting my groceries online. I live close enough to a grocery store that going isn’t a hassle, and I actually like seeing and touching the fruits and veggies and proteins before I buy them.

And I’m not alone. Consumer surveys show that the inability to see items like produce before purchasing is a big barrier to online grocery shopping adoption. An eMarketer survey earlier this year found the 96 percent of U.S. internet users still primarily shop for groceries in store.

But friends of mine told me how much money they had saved by switching to online shopping (fewer impulse purchases). Saving money is always intriguing, so that got me thinking about making the switch myself.

This decision was bolstered when I spoke with a grocery startup CEO who told me that based on his experience, the produce ordered online was actually better because the pickers who work at the store actually knew how to pick the freshest fruits and vegetables. They were professionals and what I was giving up by shopping in person would be made up by their experience.

So I figured now was a good a time as any to get my groceries online. A Safeway near me offered delivery, so I logged on and mostly stuck to the basics: milk, eggs, bread — and threw in a bunch of bananas (well, “six” since the amount had to be precise).

The order was placed, the delivery window set. The truck arrived on-time and the driver was professional. Everything I ordered was there, even the six bananas, which…were emerald. I’m not talking about just up by the stem; they were forest green from top to bottom. The picture above is of the bunch I received after putting them in a paper bag to hasten the ripening overnight.

If I was ordering by mail, shipping underripe fruit would make more sense. You don’t want it bruised during the shipment and it will take a couple days to reach its destination. But Safeway is just up the road, the time in transit is hours (at most, depending on the delivery route), not days.

This isn’t meant as a screed against Safeway, but what it told me was that my order was just a series of boxes for its employees to check as it was fulfilled. Milk? Check. Eggs? Check. Bananas? Check — no matter what kind of shape they were in. At no point in the fulfillment did someone go “Hey, these bananas look inedible” and swap them out.

I realize this is a very small sample size, and perhaps my delivery was an outlier. But if this is my first experience, it could the same for other n00bs. And it’s worth bringing up because a lot of money is being poured into food delivery startups, and companies like Kroger are investing heavily in automating grocery delivery. But what good is flawless last mile logistics when what’s being delivered can’t be eaten?

Perhaps a better way to go is ordering online and doing curbside pickup. At least then I can get out, inspect the produce and return anything that doesn’t look good.

What’s your experience with grocery delivery? Do you do it regularly? Have you had any issues? Let us know in the comments below!

Albertsons’ Grocery Digital Marketplace is All About Data

Between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, “data” has almost become a different kind of four letter word. But acting out of fear can make it easy to forget that data can be really useful for companies and consumers alike. In fact, data is a big reason why grocery company Albertsons is launching a digital marketplace this summer.

Late last month Albertsons, whose banner brands include Safeway and Vons, announced registration was open for vendors to apply to sell their food and wellness goods through a new digital marketplace. The still-unnamed marketplace will allow both smaller food startups and larger CPG brands who want to experiment with new products to sell those wares on a national platform, without taking up real estate.

“The number of innovative products that are coming out is truly amazing,” said Narayan Iyengar, SVP of Digital Marketing and e-commerce, Albertsons Companies. “We would like to stock all of them in the store, but shelf space is limited.”

While the move does expand Albertsons’ catalog without expanding any square footage, it’s also a data play for the grocer. Iyengar said that their new marketplace will provide interesting data about food trends, so the grocery company can capitalize on those trends more quickly. For example, if a boutique hot sauce becomes a huge hit in Los Angeles, the physical Albertsons stores in that area will be able to move fast and make room for the hot sauce on their shelves. This data will also provide insight for the participating vendors, indicating where they should build out distribution.

For Alberstons, stocking shelves to keep up with trends isn’t just geared towards the customers that come into their physical store. By the middle of this year, Instacart will be providing same day delivery for 1,800 Albertsons locations. Having a broad range of products available to impatient consumers will be critical as Albertsons looks to fend off huge competitors like Walmart and Amazon/Whole Foods.

Albertsons’ digital marketplace is supposed to launch early this summer, and according to Iyengar, “several” vendors have signed up already. Albertsons doesn’t list any prerequisites on its signup page, but vendors will need to be able to ship directly to customers and will be responsible for customer service. The digital marketplace itself is currently going through the final stages of testing, and will most likely be tightly integrated with the stores’ existing brands, as opposed to marketing itself as a completely separate entity.

Will this digital marketplace be a hit with consumers? We’ll have to look at the data to see.