Instacart Shoppers—Part-Time Employees Flags the Error
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2 E the Instacart shoppers—part-time employees flags the error. (Customers and shoppers can who work with no minimum-hour requirement also communicate through the app (D).) Once (Boston alone has more than 400 shoppers)— the list is completed, the shopper checks out. have dedicated apps that notify them of new If they’re in a store with a dedicated Instacart orders. Each order is sent to a specific shopper, station (E), the cashier will confirm that the items and the app’s algorithm tries to provide the most match the order. Orders are packed into bags, efficient way to navigate the store to fill (B)it . which are then labeled, numbered, and held The shopper scans the barcode of each item. If for delivery. (Temperature-sensitive bags sit in it matches the customer’s request, it’s marked Instacart refrigerators and freezers until they’re The app-fueled, farmer-friendly, totally delicious plan to kill the supermarket. as found (C); if, say, the shopper scans 2 percent ready to go.) Instacart pays for the groceries ADD CART milk when the customer ordered skim, the app then gets reimbursed by the customer. THERE IS NO greater temple to our industrialized food system than the American supermarket. With its bins of megafarmed produce, attention-seeking boxes of processed foods, and generous, if anonymous, cuts of meat, it is a place of comforting predictability and one-stop convenience. And like the American waistline, it’s also huge: A typical supermarket is 46,000 square feet and carries some 42,000 products. Problem is, it’s a terrible way to get food. ¶ Such scale demands a vast supply chain, with goods transported to multiple distribution centers before they arrive at stores. This comes with costs, most notably in food loss. A 2014 report found that 43 billion pounds of retail food didn’t make it to consumers, for reasons like mold, inadequate climate control, and other factors B the industry calls shrinkage (let’s face it, that’s embarrassing for anyone). All this is damaging to the environment and, because it encourages mass production, gives us worse food (in terms of both taste and nutrition). The supermarket was once a modern marvel, but, as they say, that register is closed: The $638 billion industry is ripe for reinvention. ¶ Thanks to the smartphone- addicted consumer, GPS, apps, and the Internet, a new breed of startup is building systems that make it easier for producers to know just how much to produce, for shoppers to order just what they want, and for food to get from one to the other faster and with fewer stops in between. They range from offerings like Instacart, which gets us partway there by providing a digital portal C into existing stores, to more advanced services, like Farmigo, that show the potential to eliminate physical stores entirely. All emphasize convenience. Many promote transparency, responsible practices, and shorter supply chains. The upsides: higher-quality food, easier-than-pie delivery, a wider range of growers, and reduced waste and carbon emissions. The downsides: For now it tends to be expensive, and the market will need to grow before these services can break out of elite cities. But the future they promise—the end of the strip mall monolith and better and smarter food, to boot—is hard to resist. —Courtney Balestier INSTACART This concierge-style A service relies on the WHERE 18 US metro areas, including Chicago, Miami, existence of brick-and- New York, and San Francisco mortar stores but does the shopping for you— WHAT Almost the entire often delivering in an inventory of stores like Whole Foods and Petco (in some areas hour or two. At some Place the you can get Insta-booze!) Whole Foods loca- Order D tions, Instacart even PRICE At or above in-store cost, has its own check- 1Forget traffic jams plus a delivery fee out lines and staging in the produce aisle: Customers punch in areas. When it comes their zip code online to traditional grocers, “it’s truly a joint partnership,” or via the app (A) to says Vishwa Chandra, Instacart’s vice president of retail see partnered retailers in their area, from big F accounts. The company taps into inventory data and lets guys like Whole Foods stores set prices; Instacart gets either a fee or a percent- and Costco to local age of the sale. According to the company, its customers shops like Bi-Rite in San Francisco. They buy two and a half to four times as much as in-store cus- also see whether DELIVER GOODS tomers—and not just in the fancy (or not-so-fancy) chain prices are currently at or above regular store stores. Instacart partners with co-ops too. “It’s important Sometimes shoppers also deliver, but usually prices. If an item is out independently contracted drivers (think Uber) take to have that breadth,” Chandra says. “We didn’t want this of stock, users can over, loading orders into vehicles—or, in dense urban choose an alternative to be just the large guys getting online.” markets like New York City, pushcarts—and bringing or tag a quality, like them to customers’ doors along a route determined by “sweet cereal,” that the app for maximum efficiency(F) . If an order contains any replacement goods from more than one store, the app also takes that should satisfy. (The into account, matching drivers accordingly. Tipping is most-ordered item? optional—most Instacart customers do. Bananas.) Illustrations by Jesse Harp Lettering by Matthew Tapia 9 3 CREATE MARKET List 1 Available FARMIGO Farmigo is strict about grown sustainably. Ronen’s Three or four days before the order window 3 locality and sustainability: aim is to have 90 percent opens, farmers input predictions for PLACE Each region has a sourcing of items produced within that cycle’s harvest—18 bushels of eggplant, THE manager who interacts with 150 miles of the market 500 heads of broccoli—into Farmigo’s software A farmers (and producers like community—though Farmigo (A). This virtual inventory is updated constantly ORDER bakers and cheesemakers), does sell items like avocados during each order cycle to account for all of whom meet the and lemons that it flags changes in the field. company’s family-ownership as nonlocal. Off-limits? In 2009, when Far- Customers log on, online and non-GMO criteria and Bananas. Non-US products or via app, choose pickup migo started gather- whose goods are certified are “not a line we’re willing locations, and shop from WHERE New Jersey, New organic by the USDA or to cross,” he says. traditional grocery categories York, San Francisco Bay Area, ing local producers (plus themed offerings like Seattle/Tacoma into a community Bestsellers Bundle (B), marketplace, founder featuring the week’s most WHAT Farm-fresh produce, Benzi Ronen noticed popular picks). The order meat, and dairy; pantry items; that half the farmers window opens five to six snacks; breads; prepared foods days before pickup (Mondays it approached had B and Wednesdays), and PRICE Similar to Whole Foods broadband. He real- customers can edit orders ized that with online until the window closes. software he could cre- ate a network of farms and a transparent supply chain: “You can almost track a tomato like a FedEx package,” he says. And so Farmigo does, following the 500 items sold in each region as they flow from the farmers (who earn a hefty 60 cents on the dollar) to the warehouse employ- ees, contracted drivers, and pickup-hub organizers. With small staging warehouses and nimble pickup venues, Far- migo can apply the same decentralized model to dense urban communities and sparser suburban ones in places like New Jersey and Tacoma, Washington. Here’s how. C D PICK UP When a customer arrives, they scan the labeled Farmigo bags (D) for their name, then head home feeling satisfied that they didn’t have to deal with a trip to Whole Foods. Fill the 5 materials, and refrigerated Order 6 the items are insulated in inflated cool sleeves with Deliver Goods biodegradable ice packs. When that window closes, Rather than one centralized team members do quality Everything is placed in the system automatically Drivers stock vans (which are easier to come by warehouse, Farmigo inspections and update the insulated containers for emails orders to the farmers than trucks and are better for navigating through operates many small ware- system if, say, the farmer easier stacking, and each and producers, who harvest multiple stops in dense urban areas) with the houses—really just staging ran out of the spaghetti step is tracked. “The minute or prepare accordingly (often orders for five to six pickup locations, then make areas where orders are squash you ordered and goods transition from one also creating short backstory the rounds to the schools, houses of worship, and packed—to keep them closer is substituting butternut. point to another, you need to videos for customers). gyms that serve as pickup nodes. Those spots are to both farmers and cus- (Auto-generated emails store the information,” Ronen Independently contracted chosen by either the organizers or Farmigo itself, tomers. The crew monitors alert customers to switches.) says. “So if there’s a break in drivers deliver the goods which reaches out to community hubs to see if progress with tablet- Foods are wrapped in the process, you know who’s from vendors to the local they’d be willing to host. based software (C): First, compostable protective accountable.” warehouse. 9 5 Place room at 34 degrees Fahrenheit, the 2 FILL ORDER tomato room, 55—and in-house FRESHDIRECT the production follows the just-in-time model, baking and making to order.