The Future of Food-Shopping
October 12, 2009
Why’s Food So Far Behind?
Last week, I shopped at one of the largest grocery chains in the northeastern United States. As an incurably Type B personality, I often forget that magic orange store discount card. 
The store would prefer that I am never without my card (so they can research and sell information about my shopping habits) or, if I must be cardless, that I not ask my cashier (who then would have to trouble his supervisor for a generic version of The Elusive Orange Card)–which would preclude the store from at least collecting a bit more profit from my price-inflated purchases.
When my disgruntled cashier berated me for not having The Elusive Orange Card on my person, I remembered that the little local bookstore a few doors down maintains a digital system for its in-store cafe coffee cards (just tell the cashier your name, and the 10th drink is free).
So, between the relentlessly flawed self check-outs, low-tech information collection (which could be used to mutual benefit, to improve my experience), and odiously unintuitive store lay-outs, why does the grocery experience lag so far behind?
Wish Fulfillment
Recently, my coworker came across an article in the New York Times’ Magazine section, envisioning a more ideal future for food-purchasing (and preparation) from an “I desire…” buyer’s point-of-view. The wishlist included some seemingly, and admittedly, distant notions. Nevertheless, they’re interesting to consider as future milestones, if aspirational.
I’m not talking about science-fiction fantasies, like a food-on-demand machine: punch a button labeled “Caesar salad” or “ice-cream sundae,” and the machine fulfills your wish by assembling your order from molecules [...]. More realistic, if barely, is the truly automatic, robotic, voice-operated food chopper. (“Remove carrot from fridge, please, peel, chop, thank you very much.”)
The Foreseeable Future of Food
The world is, undoubtedly, going digital–and it’s reasonable to assume food purchasing will follow suit. Customers seem to desire two primary attributes when it comes to online grocery shopping–which are already possible given current technology, even if not currently offered.
Transparency – With growing interest in “organic,” “locally grown,” and a plethora of other selective, edible possibilites, the article’s author wistfully imagined “that you could ask and be told the provenance and ingredients of any product you look at in your Web browser.
“Most online grocers are geared toward helping retailers sell what they want rather than helping consumers buy what we want.”
You could specify, for example, ‘wild, never-frozen seafood’ or ‘organic, local broccoli.’”
Many people don’t use online grocers, it seems, because they don’t like the idea of someone else choosing food for them–who wants bruised fruit, or just-under-stale bread? While this can’t necessarily be prevented, most online grocers provide no-hassle refunds or replacements for damaged or spoiled items.
Personalization - How about saving your preferences? (ex. only display vegetarian foods, local produce, or animals raised cage-free). “You might even, I suppose, be able to ask the store to limit the amount of impulse purchases that you make — forget that second pint of Ben & Jerry’s or those Cheez-Its you have trouble resisting.”
Rich Tarrant Jr., CEO of MyWebGrocer.com, explained that, currently, it’s possible to get sale-notification emails tailored to one’s preferences–and to build a running shopping list that you can send to order when you’re ready. (Might be nice if it ordered for you when it was complete, though.)
It seems the next stage after personalization would be the sharing of preferences–maybe a “Last.fm” of food and recipe libraries (“love it” features), integrated cooking videos–and perhaps even those “click to buy” icons.
Future Health: Information Innovations Over Physical Inventions
“More expensive appliances don’t promote cooking any more than exorbitant gym memberships promote fitness.”
Cooking appliances are expensive, and many individuals have less and less time to spend preparing meals. (Not to mention, navigating grocery stores and standing in check-out lines.)
It seems to us that user interests and personal health advancements will increasingly center around ways in which we receive information about and purchase foods–in the context of accessible, engaging, everyday scenarios.
Header image courtesy of iboy_daniel’s flickr, (cc) some rights reserved.
In my ideal scenario, we’d see some form of hybrid between physical and online grocery stores (bringing digital, food-related information into the physical store). While I agree that the experience at a typical chain grocery store leaves much to be desired, shopping for groceries online, in my opinion, isn’t an improvement, regardless of how “smart” or information-rich the shopping portal is.
Food shopping is supposed to be a tactile experience, at least if one cares about the quality of the items they’re purchasing. Grocery stores, with their shrink-wrapped, bulk-packed displays, have in many ways removed tactility from food shopping. Moving into an exclusively online storefront only heightens the problem. (I’ll also add from personal experience that online grocery services can be exorbitantly expensive.)
Food is different from a lot of other goods and doesn’t, in my opinion, fare very well as an information object. While the Internet has brought about some very positive changes in how we perceive food (provenance, awareness of ecological impact, etc.), the experience of virtually interacting with food cannot begin to replace the experience of physically interacting with food.
Put it this way: Which would you prefer? Selecting ‘wild, never-frozen seafood’ in a web portal or actually going to the fish counter to examine the product? There’s really no substitution, here.
I’d argue that the glut of food content online — and the growing awareness of health, environmental, and other issues surrounding food — should compel people to become more hands-on with their food selection, rather than to retreat into virtual storefronts.