SAN FRANCISCO — Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America, today announced its acquisition of FoodStorm, a SaaS order management system (OMS) that powers end-to-end order-ahead and catering experiences for grocery retailers. With this acquisition, Instacart is expanding its enterprise technology portfolio to further support its retail partners’ ecommerce needs, investing in more innovative technology solutions that help retailers grow, compete, and better meet the evolving needs of their customers.
The process for ordering prepared foods from grocers typically requires customers to call the store or place an order in-person – a labor-intensive and inefficient process that often results in both missed sales opportunities for retailers and a cumbersome customer experience. FoodStorm helps solve this problem by creating a more seamless experience for both retailers and customers. FoodStorm has developed a comprehensive SaaS offering that covers multi-channel ordering – ecommerce, phone or in-store kiosk – order management, and payment and fulfillment. Its technology also integrates easily with a large variety of third-party systems including point of sale systems (POS) and offers customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities that help grocers collect feedback, market their offerings and leverage promotional features.
FoodStorm was founded 14 years ago and has developed strong partnerships with a number of Instacart’s existing retail partners including Albertsons Companies banners Balducci’s and Kings Food Markets, as well as Bi-Rite Market, Mollie Stone’s Markets, Uncle Giuseppe’s and Roche Brothers Supermarkets. Looking ahead, Instacart will make FoodStorm’s technology available to more retailers through Instacart’s leading enterprise technology offering. In addition to acquiring FoodStorm’s technology and tools, Instacart is also excited to welcome the talented FoodStorm team, which is based in the U.S. and Melbourne, Australia to Instacart.
“As a retailer enablement platform, Instacart is focused on growing our partners’ businesses by investing in innovative new technologies and services that deliver significant value to them and their customers,” said Mark Schaaf, Chief Technology Officer, Instacart. “Our goal is to help our retail partners increase their sales and ensure more of their customers’ everyday meals come from the grocery store. That’s why we’re excited to welcome the talented FoodStorm team to Instacart and integrate their end-to-end order-ahead and catering platform into Instacart’s leading enterprise offering. For retailers, this new enterprise solution helps them bring even more of their inventory online, enhance their ecommerce capabilities, grow their business and meet the evolving needs of their customers. And, for customers, this unlocks a healthier, more affordable alternative to restaurant delivery – creating an easier way for people to order prepared foods online directly from their favorite grocers.”
Order-ahead technology solutions provide grocery retailers with a significant growth opportunity. On the Instacart platform, customers who purchase prepared foods and catering items like hot and cold side dishes, cakes and sushi from the grocery store have significantly larger baskets and shop more frequently than those customers who do not. For retailers, order-ahead items and prepared foods are also typically more profitable than traditional groceries like produce and package goods.
“I’m incredibly proud of what the FoodStorm team has achieved for our partners. We’ve developed market-leading software that makes it easier for grocers to execute on prepared food and catering orders more efficiently, and track everything from one central location. This is a huge growth opportunity for grocers, and we’ve seen increased demand for our products as more customers are searching for seamless online and in-store ordering capabilities,” said FoodStorm CEO Rob Hill. “Grocery is an incredibly complex retail category, making the need for enterprise-grade solutions like FoodStorm and Instacart critical to the long-term success of the industry we all rely on to put food on our tables. We’re excited about this next chapter as we join the Instacart team and create new ways for retailers to serve the ever-changing needs of their businesses and customers.”
“Delivering a world-class customer experience and excellent prepared foods is the mission of our business, and FoodStorm and Instacart have helped us do just that,” said Russell McVeigh, Catering Director at Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace. “Once we deployed FoodStorm’s technology, online sales doubled and we were able to be more innovative with our menus because of the increased visibility FoodStorm’s platform provides. Both FoodStorm and Instacart have been critical to our growth and ability to serve our customers, and we’re excited to see what compelling enterprise products they’ll develop together.”
“Both Instacart and FoodStorm have been important partners in bringing our business online and have opened up brand new sales and customer service channels for us,” said Adam Laliberte, Director of Food Services at Roche Brothers Supermarkets. “Before FoodStorm, our software systems weren’t compatible with our catering needs and we had a limited online presence which meant we were missing out on a huge opportunity. Because of Foodstorm’s flexible and easily configurable technology, we’ve seen an increase in our catering business and have the ability to manage this increase more efficiently so that our teams can focus more on our customers. I’m thrilled that they are now joining forces with Instacart and we’re excited to see what enterprise offerings they’ll bring to market together.”
Instacart’s enterprise technology today powers the comprehensive ecommerce platforms of more than 175 local, regional and national grocers across North America, including Costco Canada, Heinen’s, Sprouts, The Fresh Market, and Wegmans. Instacart first began offering enterprise technology to grocery partners in 2017. Since then, the company has continued to make significant investments in its enterprise business, scaling its engineering team and developing new technologies for grocers.
About Instacart
Instacart is the leading online grocery platform in North America. Instacart shoppers offer same-day delivery and pickup services to bring fresh groceries and everyday essentials to busy people and families across the U.S. and Canada. Instacart has partnered with more than 600 beloved national, regional and local retailers, including unique brand names, to deliver from nearly 55,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities in North America. Instacart’s platform is available to over 85% of U.S. households and 80% of Canadian households. The company’s cutting-edge enterprise technology also powers the ecommerce platforms of some of the world’s biggest retail players, supporting their white-label websites, applications and delivery solutions. Instacart offers an Instacart Express membership that includes reduced service fees and unlimited free delivery on orders over $35. For more information, visit www.instacart.com. For anyone interested in becoming an Instacart shopper, visit https://shoppers.instacart.com/.
