Kroger Boosts eCommerce Efforts; DoorDash Drives Sales With DoubleDash

Kroger, the United States’ leading pure-play grocer, is making several moves to boost its competitive position in eCommerce across grocery and prepared meal categories.

In an effort to improve the curbside pickup labor economics, the company is testing out Trace Grocery electronic carts created by BrightDrop, a General Motors subsidiary, according to a BrightDrop announcement Monday (Sept. 19). Shoppers pick their items up from these temperature-controlled carts through a digital verification process, and Kroger has observed “noticeable” positive effects on workflow and on the customer experience, per the release.

“COVID has driven a dramatic increase in online grocery shopping, and fulfilling these orders profitably has become a major challenge for retailers of all sizes,” BrightDrop President and CEO Travis Katz said in a statement. “With the Trace Grocery, we saw an opportunity to help companies like Kroger tackle these challenges head on.”

Additionally, the company is looking to boost online shopping personalization and recommendations by working with French meal planning startup Jow, as the latter’s co-founder and CEO Jacques-Edouard Sabatier told attendees of a Groceryshop event Tuesday (Sept. 20), per a Grocery Dive report. Through the partnership, the grocer’s online shoppers can specify dietary preferences and restrictions and other information relevant to meal planning, and they will be recommended relevant recipes.

Plus, Kroger is also looking to boost visibility of its meal kits and prepared meals subsidiary, Home Chef, which has been performing especially well since rising food prices have had many consumers seeking budget-friendly restaurant alternatives. On Tuesday, the company announced a line of weekly recipes in partnership with television personality Rachael Ray.

The collaboration, which will run for six months, presents the grocer with an opportunity to expose its meal solution offerings to a wider audience.

“At Home Chef, we’re always looking for new ways to bring our fans meals they’ll love,” Shira Schwarz, vice president of brand marketing for Home Chef, said in a statement. “Rachael Ray is someone our customers admire for her quick and easy recipes that taste amazing, so she was a natural fit for this menu partnership.”

DoorDash Sees Grocery Sales Growth With Merchant Additions, DoubleDash Launch

In another Groceryshop event, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu spoke to the progress the aggregator is seeing in its grocery business in a Tuesday session entitled “Delivering Growth for Grocery” in conversation with Jon Fortt, co-anchor of CNBC’s TechCheck.

Xu explained that the addition of new grocers has helped double the number of consumers buying groceries through the aggregator in the past year, Coresight Research reported.

Additionally, The Shelby Report noted that the company’s DoubleDash feature, whereby consumers can add items from other merchants to their restaurant orders, has helped drive adoption of non-restaurant verticals.

See also: Restaurant Roundup: DoubleDashed, Double Vaxxed And Double Shacked

“Products like DoubleDash, where you can add a delivery after you check out from a restaurant and bundle them into the order, (consumers) are effectively paying one fee for multiple deliveries,” Xu said. “That has really driven a lot of adoption of these other categories such as alcohol, pharmacy products or even a couple things from the grocery store.”

Asian eGrocer HappyFresh Reevaluates Future With New Funding

Jakarta, Indonesia-based online grocery company HappyFresh has raised funds of an undisclosed amount to start operations back up in its home country, Deal Street Asia reported Wednesday (Sept. 21).

The news comes after a pause connected to the company’s restructuring efforts in response to a downturn in the eGrocery market. While the company may be starting back up in Indonesia, it is shutting down its Thailand and Malaysia businesses.

“We have gone through a lot,” Filippo Candrini, managing director of HappyFresh Indonesia, said in a statement quoted by Bloomberg. “Over the past weeks when we paused operations, we saw numerous comments from customers across various social media platforms stating their reliance on our service offering while requesting for the service to be resumed as soon as possible.”

The company is replacing three board members by executives from United States investigation and risk consulting firm Kroll.