Recent years have seen an explosion in delivery services that promise to make every aspect of shopping faster and more convenient. And while juggernauts like Amazon and AliExpress have reshaped how we buy everything from furniture to electronics, supermarkets have so far remained popular with consumers who aren't quite ready to buy their lettuce and steaks online.
But many in the industry are suggesting that the time may be ripe for a new wave of tech disruption in the grocery industry that will make grocery shopping more convenient and, at the same time, give shoppers access to a wide range of products.
The way people shop for groceries has stayed more-or-less the same for generations. Is that about to change?
Cutting Out the Middleman
One of the best examples of how grocery delivery services are attempting to shake up the supermarket model is truLOCAL, a pioneering online meat delivery service. Originally launched in Canada, truLOCAL has since carved out a lucrative niche in the delivery and grocery markets in many states by connecting shoppers directly with farms, butchers, fisheries, and other producers in their region.
The truLOCAL approach is based on a few simple insights into the delivery market:
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Sustainability is an important and growing concern in the grocery industry, especially when it comes to meat. But hunting down sustainable meat can be difficult. By connecting consumers directly with farms that are committed to environmentally responsible practices, delivery can be ethical as well as convenient.
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Modern consumers don't just want a product; they also want to feel they are participating in something larger than themselves. Giving customers a chance to see where exactly their steaks or chicken thighs are coming from is an important value-add.
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Delivery is about convenience, but it is also about predictability and variety. Shoppers want to know their favourite staples will always be there, but they also want new options from time to time.
In effect, truLOCAL has created a service that offers the practicality of online ordering and front-door delivery with a touch of luxury and a feeling of responsible consumption. But it has also replaced the supermarket as the mediator between producer and consumer by offering greater convenience, more transparency, and a better product.
The Future of Grocery Delivery
Until now, one of the supermarket's unassailable strengths has been the fact that people can be quite particular about food, and want to be able to handle their fruit, vegetables, and steaks before buying them. It's about checking the quality, but it's also about trust.
One of the challenges that grocery delivery apps have faced is recreating that sense of trust and quality control through a digital platform. It's telling that the approaches to grocery delivery that have often been most successful have a more community-based element, like farm boxes or CSAs.
Companies like truLOCAL have been successful because they have been able to tap into this desire for more wholesome food and a more direct connection to the producers, and they could well be a model for future innovations.
The way we shop for goods has changed dramatically in the past twenty years, and there's no reason to believe there aren't bigger changes ahead. Value-added approaches like local meat delivery are just one example of what the future of grocery shopping might look like.
