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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Walmart

The USDA Launches Its Pilot Enabling SNAP Users to Grocery Shop Online

Today, the USDA announced the launch of a pilot program that will make online grocery shopping available to those receiving SNAP benefits. According to the official press release, “lessons learned from this pilot are expected to inform future efforts to expand online purchasing in SNAP.”

To start, the program allows those SNAP users in the state of New York with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards (also issued by New York) to order groceries online, for either pickup or delivery. These users will be able to buy USDA-approved food products (No booze, for example.) SNAP benefits do not cover service or delivery fees.

As of right now, the USDA is working with Amazon as well as Walmart on the program. Regional chain ShopRite will join next week. For now, Amazon and ShopRite are piloting the program in New York City only; Walmart is serving upstate New York areas. In the coming months, the pilot will expand to other areas of New York as well as Alabama, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington, the press release stated.

The program is launching at a time when online grocery is growing rapidly. Nielsen recently revealed that roughly a quarter of Americans buy groceries online, and that number will jump to 70 percent over the next few years.

But the roughly 39 million Americans using SNAP (also known as Food Stamps), have largely been left out of this brave new world of online shopping. A startup called All_ebt made some progress at the end of 2018 by using Facebook Messenger and virtual Visa cards to help SNAP users shop online.

Now, however, it seems the Feds are finally starting to recognize on a national level the need to include lower-income and underbanked populations, who have the same busy schedules as anyone else, or may suffer from disabilities that make physically going to a grocery store challenging.

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue called this need out in the press release:

“People who receive SNAP benefits should have the opportunity to shop for food the same way more and more Americans shop for food — by ordering and paying for groceries online. As technology advances, it is important for SNAP to advance, too, so we can ensure the same shopping options are available for both non-SNAP and SNAP recipients.”

As online grocery continues to grow, retailers would be wise to join in these initiatives to include SNAP users and others on assistance programs, or risk facing the kind of backlash Amazon recently got over its Go stores, which many have seen as discriminating against lower-income and underbanked households. We expect other major grocery retailers to join the SNAP program in future, so stay tuned.

Walmart Broadens Robotic Workforce with More Autonomous Shelf-Scanners and Floor Scrubbers

Walmart appears to be going all-in on robots, as The Wall Street Journal reports today that the retail giant is adding a host of robots to the front and back of more than a thousand of its stores.

A big beneficiary of Walmart’s automation push is Bossa Nova, makers of the shelf-scanning robot, which roams up and down aisles checking inventory levels. The company first launched in roughly 50 Walmart stores back in October of 2017, and that number will now scale up to 300 locations.

Walmart is also deploying autonomous floor scrubbers made by Brain Corp. at 1,500 locations and will double the use of automated systems to scan and sort products coming off of trucks to 600 stores.

When Walmart first started using the shelf-scanning robot, it said that it was interested in using robots for tasks that are “repeatable, predictable, and manual.” The company also added that the shelf-scanning robots were “50 percent more productive than humans” at the job. Walmart told The Journal that this new robot implementation will reduce the amount of time it takes to do those tasks (shelf inventory management, cleaning) and will also cut down on the number of people needed to do them. However, Walmart went on to say that these additional robots will free up the workforce to do other (presumably higher-skilled) tasks, and that the company is hiring on its e-commerce side as it wages a grocery battle with Amazon.

In the coming years, you’ll be just as likely to find a robot in your grocery aisle as you will a radishes. All the major grocery chains are getting into the robot game: Ahold Delhaize just ordered 500 floor roaming robots to spot spills, Albertsons is building out a robotic micro-fulfillment center, and Kroger is expanding its delivery by self-driving car.

For Walmart, this massive robot rollout could be just the tip of the iceberg; the retail giant is also eyeing Flippy as robotic fry cook for its deli, and has received a patent for a robot shopping cart.

While this type of news from Walmart and other grocers will reinforce fears over robots taking all the human jobs, it’s actually more complicated than that. There are some jobs robots are better suited for, and I was speaking with a major grocery retailer earlier this month who said that it’s actually hard to find human workers who want a job in grocery stores these days.

The subject of automation is a tricky one, which is why we are holding our ArticulATE food robot summit next week, on April 16 in San Francisco. We will be chatting about how robots are transforming grocery both in-store and for delivery, and how robots will work alongside with, and yes, even replace some humans. It promises to be a great day of discussion, but tickets are almost gone, so grab yours today!

Walmart Tries to Challenge Amazon’s Grocery Supremacy through Voice Ordering

I’m not one to get excited about sporting rivalries, but I do get excited about grocery rivalries. And Amazon V. Walmart is shaking out to be the matchup of the decade.

Today Walmart made moves to challenge Amazon in the game of voice-controlled grocery ordering by announcing Walmart Voice Order. It’s a new voice-ordering capability the company is launching with Google. Starting this month, you can tell your Google Assistant (or Android or Google Smart Display) something like, “Hey Google, talk to Walmart” and then list grocery items you’d like to add to your cart. This function just keeps track of what items you want to order, though; to actually purchase them, you’ll have to give Google specific instructions to do so (though the release didn’t specify what those instructions would be).

Interestingly, Walmart actually partnered with Google Express, Google’s online shopping tool, two years ago. However, they broke off the partnership in January of this year, presumably to make way for this new voice platform.

One cool thing is that the new service will remember your frequently ordered items. So, for example, if you have a specific brand of plant-based Greek yogurt you like, you can simply say “Add yogurt to my cart” and Google will know which brand you’re talking about.

The added step of saying “Hey Google, talk to Walmart” is a little annoying, especially considering you can just say “Alexa, order yogurt” to get it directly through Whole Foods, or “Alexa, add yogurt to my shopping list” to save it for later.

The extra step of saying “Hey Google, talk to Walmart” may be a minor annoyance, but it does leave more opportunities for the voice assistant to get confused or mishear you. However, small UI nuances like that likely won’t give Walmart or Amazon an edge in the voice-ordering grocery game. Instead, it seems like the voice victor decider will come down to one thing: whether or not you have Alexa. Walmart might partner with other voice-ordering services down the road, like the Microsoft Cortana, but Alexa is likely off-limits since Amazon and Walmart compete so closely.

This could end up being a big disadvantage for Walmart simply due to Alexa’s sheer reach. Amazon owns 66 percent of the smart speaker market, according to eMarketer. And all those Alexa’s aren’t going to sell you Greek yogurt from just anywhere — they’ll push you towards Whole Foods. Which means that Amazon has a captive audience of consumers who it can easily nudge towards its own grocery purveyor, leaving Walmart out in the cold.

As of now, voice ordering still isn’t a huge sales channel for grocery. In fact, only 16 percent of Americans even order their groceries online, period. But as our world grows more connected voice technology becomes more integral in our day-to-day life, I imagine that will change. Maybe someday people will even choose to buy a Google Assistant or Alexa based off of whether they prefer shopping at Walmart or Whole Foods.

According to TechCrunch, Walmart’s Google voice shopping for in-store pickup will be offered at more than 2,100 Walmart stores and for online delivery at over 800 stores.

The Walmart news came just hours after Amazon announced a new wave of price cuts at Whole Foods in an attempt to make the natural grocery outlet more wallet friendly. By cutting costs, they’re hoping to do away with their nickname of ‘Whole Paycheck’ and attract a wider swath of consumers — including ones who tend to shop at more budget grocery chains, like, ya know, Walmart.

Walmart Adds Grocery Delivery Partners, but How Long Will They Last?

Walmart announced yesterday that it has added four new online grocery delivery partners to its roster: Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire and Roadie. Walmart says it currently offers delivery in 800 stores and will double that number by the end of this year.

This announcement follows several moves Walmart’s made over the past year to expand its grocery delivery options. The company also works with Deliv and DoorDash, and Walmart subsidiary Sams Club has a partnership with Instacart. But one has to wonder how long these relationships will last, given some of the other moves coming out of Bentonville.

In September of last year Walmart announced Spark, its own crowd-sourced delivery platform. At the time of that announcement, the company said it wanted to “learn even more about the full last-mile delivery process,” which reads like it is interested in keeping and controlling more of the data generated around grocery delivery rather than handing it over to third party delivery services.

Walmart is also making moves that leapfrog human delivery drivers altogether. The retailer started a pilot in November with Ford and Postmates for delivery via self-driving car. And at CES last week, Walmart hooked up with Udelv for grocery delivery via that company’s self-driving cargo vans.

True autonomous car deliveries are still a ways off, as state and local laws around driverless vehicles are still being worked out. But it’s not hard to imagine Walmart ditching its third party delivery partners, combining its homegrown delivery service with some sort of autonomous delivery to manage and control the entire delivery stack. In addition to owning the entire customer relationship, the software that drives delivery vehicles can report back logistical information that helps Walmart further understand its customers (geographies, order times, frequencies, etc.) and refine the delivery process (better routes).

Given the aggressive nature of Walmart’s actions in its grocery battle with Amazon and Kroger, I wouldn’t be surprised if the company went the mobile commerce route as well, perhaps even leasing Robomarts. These self-driving stores on wheels can be more efficient than strict delivery vehicles because they spend more time making money (no travels back to HQ, empty), and they also act as big, roving billboards with Walmart branding.

Again, that’s a ways off, but online grocery sales tripled from 2013 to 2018, and are expected quadruple over the coming years. Walmart is making moves like these new partnerships to expand its delivery footprint now, but with all of the company’s other machinations, how many of these third-party partners will it need when online grocery ordering and delivery becomes the new normal?

Report: Amazon Building More Whole Foods, Will There Be Room for Robot Fulfillment?

Never let it be said that Amazon slows down, even during the holidays. The Wall Street Journal reports that Bezos’ behemoth has plans to add more Whole Food stores across the country so its two-hour grocery delivery service can reach even more people.

If true–The Journal’s story is based on “people familiar with the plans”–the news isn’t terribly surprising. Amazon is very competitive and has a history of sacrificing profitability for aggressive growth. A Progressive Grocer report earlier this year ranked Amazon as the eighth largest grocer in the U.S. And although Amazon is the leader in online grocery sales, a recent report from Brick Meets Click shows that shoppers spend way less with Amazon than they do with other grocery retailers.

Walmart, the largest grocer in the U.S. has 4,700 American locations, and the company says it has a store within 10 miles of 90 percent of the population. Walmart was on track to make same day delivery available to 40 percent of the U.S. population by the end of this year, and has a goal to make it available to 60 percent by the end of next year.

Whole Foods, on the other hand, has 470 locations (including in the U.K. and Canada) with two-hour delivery available to Amazon Prime members in 63 cities. So you can see how Amazon is playing catch up here. The question is how they will catch up, and that’s not just about the number of stores.

Part of The Journal story says that some of the spaces Amazon is looking at are slightly larger than the average Whole Foods locations, with the extra space being use for delivery and pickup. Does this mean that Amazon could be jumping on the in-store robot fulfillment center bandwagon?

Albertsons, Ahold Delhaize and Walmart are building out robot fulfillment centers in their stores to facilitate super-fast online grocery order fulfillment (Kroger is building out dedicated standalone robot warehouses). Amazon is already big into robotics in its warehouses, and started experimenting with half hour grocery pickup in select Whole Foods. For a company dedicated to efficiency and speed, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see some sort of automation being built into new locations from the ground up.

Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods in 2017 scared and catalyzed the grocery industry into spending money and innovating throughout 2018. If Amazon is ramping up its geographical presence, and it seems likely it will, buckle up because 2019 is going to be a wild ride for everyone in the grocery game.

Walmart Gives Flippy the Frying Robot a Shot

Flippy, the burger flipping, fry cooking robot, is auditioning for a new gig in Walmart’s deli department, according to Yahoo Finance. The retail giant has been testing Flippy out at its Culinary Institute and Innovation Center, where the robot fries up items like potato wedges, mozzarella sticks and chicken tenders.

This wouldn’t be the first time Miso Robotics‘ Flippy worked a fryer. The robot got a gig this past summer at Dodger Stadium, where it helped cook up more than ten thousand pounds of chicken tenders and tater tots, churning out up to 80 baskets per hour.

As we wrote earlier, there are three core technologies powering Flippy’s fry capabilities:

At the fryer, Flippy uses the Miso See, Miso Serve and Miso Move technologies to fry up the aforementioned tenders and tots. Miso See allows Flippy to identify food, cookware and utensils. Miso Serve helps the robot make real-time cooking decisions. Miso Move controls Flippy’s movements to make sure it is working safely and efficiently. All together, Flippy can put full baskets in the fry oil, monitor the cooking time (and gently shake the baskets while cooking), remove the baskets to drain the oil, and set the food at a designated location for serving.

It should come as no surprise that Walmart is mulling over adding Flippy to its cooking team. Walmart likes to use robots for manual, repetitive tasks and already has them scanning store shelves, cleaning floors and potentially even driving shopping carts.

But that’s three jobs at Walmart that will potentially be performed by robots and not humans. Miso Robotics CEO, David Zito told Yahoo Finance, “Our whole thing is not about job replacement, right….What we want to do is assist the hardworking linemen cooks and chefs in America with tools to give them the ability to faithfully reproduce while taking the burden off some of these more repetitive and mundane tasks.” For its part, Walmart says having robots handle these repetitive tasks frees up humans to prep other food and do more customer service.

While there are mountains of ethical issues coming down the pike as robots take more of our jobs, the fry cook is one where it might actually make sense. In addition to being manual and repetitive, there’s also a certain level of danger associated with standing over a vat of hot oil. Robots,however, don’t get burned, and because they use software to precisely repeat its tasks all day, they won’t burn your tenders.

After More Romaine Recalls, Is Blockchain the Missing Link in Preventing Outbreaks?

If you have any Romaine lettuce in your crisper, it’s time to chuck it. Yesterday the Center for Disease Control (CDC) announced that romaine lettuce is unsafe to eat in any form due to contamination by a dangerous type of E. Coli bacteria.

The warning throws a large net, covering any lettuce already purchased, or waiting to be bought either wholesale or on supermarket shelves. And with good reason. According to the Washington Post, the CDC doesn’t know where, when, or how the contamination happened. Which means that instead of pinpointing the source(s) of contamination and eliminating lettuce just from those suppliers, they have to play it safe and sentence all Romaine nationwide to the trash bin.

Not only does that ruin a lot of Caesar salads — especially ones destined for the Thanksgiving table — but it also creates a mountain of food waste, and could have wide-reaching effects on produce farmers. This outbreak also comes only a few months after another load of E. Coli-contaminated Romaine (apparently unrelated to the current batch) left 5 dead.

One tool which some think could help solve the problem is blockchain. While blockchain can’t prevent an outbreak from happening, it can help quickly identify the source so that farmers can prevent further contamination. It also allows retailers to take only contaminated products off their shelves, so they aren’t stuck tossing out the baby with the bathwater.

Some companies are already harnessing blockchain to try and increase food traceability. In September, Walmart announced that they would require all its leafy green vegetable suppliers to upload production data to the blockchain through its IBM Food Trust Network. Ripe.io is recently raised $2.4 million to create its “Blockchain for Food,” which allows users to access a detailed record of any food item at any time.

Food traceability company FoodLogiQ is also experimenting with blockchain. In June they launched an R&D hub to explore new technologies in food safety. The first project’s focus: blockchain.

I reached out to FoodLogiQ’s CMO Katy Jones to get her take on the latest Romaine recall. She said that news like this illustrates just how direly we need end-to-end traceability in the food system. And blockchain could play a role in that.

“[Blockchain has] potential to be a transformative method to open up transparency in the food supply chain,” she said.

But it’s not a perfect solution. “Without data built on a common standard and supply chain partners committed to gathering and reporting on that data, blockchain alone will not solve these issues,” concluded Jones. After all, at its core blockchain is just a ledger, which means it’s only as good as the information that humans — who have been known to make mistakes — enter.

The bottom line is that we don’t know how effective blockchain will be in helping to identify and mitigate outbreaks. But we do know that until the majority of farmers, retailers, and everyone in between is united in using the new technology, blockchain won’t be the magic bullet that some hope it to be. Sorry, lettuce lovers.

Food Blockchain: Hype Or True Path To Food Transparency

At a 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit panel, executives from ripe.io and Walmart tackled the role of blockchain in food — and food safety. Watch the video to hear the whole conversation.

Video: Food Blockchain — Just Hype, Or True Path To Food Transparency?

Blockchain is everywhere, from currency to copyright protection. Many also see the decentralized ledger as the key to food system transparency — that is, an incorruptible record of where food comes from, which can help increase food safety and promote customer knowledge. Others are skeptical, but blockchain is nonetheless a hot topic on the (dinner) table.

Two companies betting on blockchain as the future of food transparency are Walmart and Ripe.io. The former recently announced they would be using blockchain to keep track of spinach and lettuce sold in their stores, and the latter has been working for two years to create “The Blockchain for Food” (and racking up funding, too).

Watch as Stacey Higginbotham of Stacey on IoT talks to Walmart’s Tejas Bhatt and Ripe.io’s Raja Ramachandran about the impact of blockchain on the food ecosystem.

Food Blockchain: Hype Or True Path To Food Transparency

Look out for more videos of the panels, solo talks, and fireside chats from SKS 2018! We’ll be bringing them to you hot and fresh out the (smart) kitchen over the next few weeks.

Sam’s Club to Open Cashierless Concept Store Next Week

Walmart-owned Sam’s Club will open up a new store in Dallas next week that will feature a high-tech take on grocery shopping with cashierless checkout, in-store search and augmented reality. The move will also escalate Walmart’s innovation battle with rival Amazon and its cashierless Go stores.

Dubbed Sam’s Club Now, the new store concept will feature the company’s Scan & Go payment technology. Members who shop at Sam’s Club Now will now be required to use the Scan & Go app to scan and pay for items and serve as the foundation for other features such as:

  • Smart shopping lists. Using machine learning and purchase data, Sam’s Club Now will automatically generate a shopping list for users and automatically update it as items are purchased.
  • In-store navigation. Search for an item and the app will navigate you to its location in the store. Eventually, the app will create an optimal route for shoppers based on their smart shopping list.
  • Augmented Reality. This doesn’t seem to be fully baked yet, but from the company’s corporate blog post: “We’ll bring items to life in the club by sharing new ways to use them, and we’ll work to integrate stories that highlight cool features, including how items are sourced. We also have plans to use augmented reality to transform members’ digital carts into pirate ships. Or maybe you’d prefer a rocket? More on that soon!”

The use of Scan & Go will also mean a new role for us humans. Sam’s Club is creating a new position called the Member Host, which the company wants you to think of like a “concierge of the club.” Instead of just ringing customers up, they will help guide and inform shoppers. This is actually a common theme among companies implementing automation. From Cafe X’s robot barista to Walmart’s shelfbot, the repetitive tasks are taken over by apps or robots and humans are kept around to provide service, expertise and perform higher level tasks.

The launch of this newfangled Sam’s Club Now is a shot across the bow of Amazon, which has been rolling out its Amazon Go stores at a rapid clip, recently, opening up three locations in Seattle, two in Chicago and one in San Francisco (with more to come).

Sam’s Club Now and Amazon Go aren’t exactly analogous to one another. Go stores don’t require any manual scanning, instead relying on banks of cameras and sensors to know what you purchased. And the two stores are going after different markets. Sam’s Club Now takes up 32,000 square feet and is more of a full grocery shopping experience as opposed to smaller, more convenience-like Go stores, which typically hover at around ~2,000 square feet and are meant for grabbing things quickly.

However, they are both pushing a technology-driven change in the way we shop for our food. Between the advancements these two giants are making, as well as the work of startups like Trigo Vision and AIpoly, among others, 2019 is shaping up to be a watershed year for the cashierless retail revolution.

Walmart Files for (Another) High-Tech Shopping Cart Patent

Most of us probably think that aside from the occasional wonky wheel, shopping carts are pretty good as-is. Put stuff in, wheel said stuff around. Done.

Walmart, however, seems hellbent on disrupting the shopping cart with all sorts of high-tech gew-gaws and gadgetry. CB Insights pointed out a new patent application from the retail giant to add a “System and Method For A Biometric Feedback Cart Handle” to its shopping carts.

When you grab hold of the cart, it reads your temperature, pulse, speed and force of grip. As you shop, the cart will monitor your biometrics. If your temperature shot up or down, the cart could call for a customer assistant to make sure you aren’t having a medical emergency. Or, the company could also tell if you are getting stressed out.

The company says it won’t keep any personal data, but as CB points out, anonymized aggregated data could be used to call out biometric trends, such as a group of agitated customers who may be getting into arguments — or maybe all get excited by the same Halloween display.

This patent filing follows one granted to Walmart earlier this year for a robot shopping cart, which could lead customers around the store, remote shopping and surveillance.

What’s funny is that at the same time, Walmart is working hard to negate the need for shopping carts at all. The retailer is testing in-store robot micro-fulfillment centers with expanded curbside pickup, and building out its own delivery network.

But people still like to shop for groceries in-store, so shopping carts aren’t going away any time soon. And who knows if these patents will ever cross over into real life. Perhaps Walmart could patent a mobile high-tech recliner next so people could nap while the robot cart drives around and monitors their sleep.

Instant Pot Launches Multi-Purpose Blender that Heats and Makes Alterna-Milks

Instant Pot, the company behind the multicooker with a rabid online fanbase, is getting into the beverage business with the release this week of the Ace Blender, which will be available exclusively through Walmart.

Dubbed the Instant Pot Ace Multi-Use Cooking & Beverage Blender, the new device not only blends up frosty smoothies, but also heats up liquids. From the product description, the Instant Pot Blender features:

  • 8 Smart Built-in Programs – Smoothie, Purée, Ice Cream, Crushed Ice, Soy Milk, Rice Milk, Almond, Nut/Oat Milk, and Soup
  • 3 Manual Blending Speeds – Low, Medium and High, blender will beep 3 times and begin blending at the selected speed
  • 4 Cold Blending Programs – Smoothies, Ice Cream, Crushed Ice, and Almond (Nut)/Oat Milk
  • 4 Hot Blending Programs – Purée, Soy Milk, Rice Milk and Soup, with the ability to toggle between 2 options for purée, rice milk and soup
  • Pitcher – Premium-quality 60 ounce (1.75 Litres) glass pitcher which includes a concealed heating element and 8 machine ground stainless steel blades

All this for the low low price of $99, which is about a quarter of the price of the Vitamix 5200. Though, to be fair, we have no idea at this point how well the Ace will perform, how long the motor will last, etc. But more important than the actual performance could be the perception of functionality for existing Instant Pot users and potential new customers.

We named Instant Pot as one of our FoodTech 25, writing:

“The Instant Pot is not the highest-tech gadget around, but its affordability, versatility, and speed have made this new take on the pressure cooker a countertop cooking phenomenon. It also has a large and fanatical community, where enthusiastic users share and reshare their favorite Instant Pot recipes across Facebook groups and online forums. By becoming the first new breakout appliance category of the millennial generation, the Instant Pot has achieved that highly desirable (and rare) position of having its brand synonymous with the name of the category; people don’t go looking for pressure cookers, they go looking for an Instant Pot.”

It’s worth pulling out the millennial aspect from that analysis, as this new blender seems to tick all those little millennial boxes: It’s affordable. Its multi-function means a lot of use in a small amount of space. And there is an existing, active community online that users can connect and experiment with. (Though technically, every generation enjoys a good bargain.)

Additionally, with the heating ability, millennials (and others) can make their own alterna-milks like rice, soy and almond (the blender even comes with a strainer cloth). Which, if it works as promised, is coming at an optimal time: non-dairy milks are growing in popularity.

We should also note that Walmart has made a savvy move by getting the exclusive on the Ace Blender, as it blocks rival Amazon from selling the appliance. Amazon, which is notoriously tight-lipped about any stats, said that the Instant Pot DUO08 was its best selling kitchen appliance in the U.S. and worldwide last holiday season. As we prep for the holidays once again, Amazon is being shut out of any buzz and sales generated by the blender.

The new Instant Pot Blender will be available for sale at Walmart starting September 23.

Walmart Acquires Cornershop, While Jet.com Gets in a New York State of Mind

Walmart announced yesterday that it is expanding its digital presence in Latin America with the $225 million acquisition of Cornershop, an online marketplace for on-demand delivery from supermarkets in Mexico and Chile. While that move continued the retail giant’s global spending spree, domestically, the company’s subsidiary Jet.com unveiled a revamped website featuring enhanced grocery delivery options in New York City.

Walmart’s purchase of Cornershop is the latest international acquisition for the company. In just this year Walmart has:

Rather than going head-on in its battle with rival, Amazon, Walmart seems to be going around and flanking it, shoring up e-commerce and digital resources around the world.

That’s not to say Walmart has given up its fight against Amazon here in the U.S. Yesterday also saw Walmart company Jet.com launch a revamped website with a new grocery shopping service catering specifically to New York City dwellers.

As part of its pitch to the Empire City, Jet.com is offering products from iconic local businesses there such as Bedford Cheese Shop, Orwashers Bakery and Just Bagels. Customers will also be able to purchase high-end craft beer for delivery.

The delivery itself is also getting an overhaul with next-day and three-hour schedule delivery windows for groceries and more. Delivery will be powered by Parcel, which Walmart acquired last year.

Obviously Walmart/Jet isn’t going to stop at New York City. Look for this type of local-and-fast e-commerce experience to scale out nationwide. Walmart is already putting those pieces together with the recent launch of its Spark Delivery service. Between the logistics data and experience it gets from Parcel, and the local purchase and delivery data Spark will provide, Walmart and Jet will be able to better target customers in different regions around the country.

And with its push into foreign markets, it won’t be too long before it will do it around the world.