Time For Your Grocerant To Deliver

It is time for supermarkets to tap into meal time delivery using the fantastic resources on hand and outsourcing delivery.

Practically every article written about food these days includes a mention of some kind of delivery offering. Whether it be a supermarket or a restaurant, the delivery scene is heating up! 

Aging boomers from the Northeast are snickering as they recall the infamous jingle "don't wash those dishes, don't scrub that floor, don't cook tonight, just pick up the phone and call Chicken Delight" - the 1,000+ stores that delivered fried chicken in about an hour in the late 1950s and 1960s. Now over sixty years later, restaurants are finding ways to launch their own services or pairing up with existing delivery companies like Seamless, GrubHub, DoorDash, Postmates and many more. In fact, earlier this week Chipotle announced that it’s expanding its delivery partnerships to target the highly sought-after college market and hopes to be in 100 campuses by next spring. Currently, Chipotle delivers to 40 campuses with the service Tapingo.

It's time to call Uber.

Supermarkets now are moving into delivery - but typically just groceries or prepared foods for shoppers to cook at home, but with the rise of the grocerants (sit-down eateries inside or adjacent to supermarkets), and leaps and bounds in prepared food departments – think: chefs, seasonal cuisine, meal solutions, nutritious dietitian picks, etc., it is time for supermarkets to tap into meal time delivery using the fantastic resources on hand and outsourcing delivery. 

In a SupermarketGuru consumer panel survey, focused on grocerants, nearly 60% of respondents say they eat at grocerants because they are convenient, 32% because it tastes good, and 31% because it costs less than a restaurant.

By tapping into these qualities, supermarkets are poised to establish themselves for high quality chef created food which consumers can enjoy and trust.

A great company to elevate the delivery image of supermarkets prepared foods at meal times would be to partner with Uber (or Lyft) who is delivering lunch and dinner daily and brunch on weekends from local highly regarded restaurants. One or two different offerings per day. At a cost of $10 -15 dollars a meal. Delivery is in less than 15 minutes. A supermarket could easily launch with a heavily advertised promotion and have the service available on an ongoing basis which quickly would establish its culinary cred.

As Uber is used traditionally, the order is be billed to the user’s Uber account, using Uber’s mobile payment system.

Having this potential outlet for prepared foods in the supermarket will change the way shoppers plan their meals, buy prepared foods, and shop for food – from a weekly trip to an almost daily acquisition of great foods that they maybe passing by as they do their weekly shop.