Zipline & Cleveland Clinic Fly Off Together
C3 expands Soom Soom, UPS goes Hyperlocal, online grocery demographics
Happy Halloween! We’ve got some news that’s more sweet than spooky: Cleveland Clinic is taking to the skies with Zipline, C3 is moving in a more traditional direction, the kiddos love to shop online (who knew?) and UPS is getting hyper-local. Let’s get to it…
Today:
Cleveland Clinic Partners with Zipline
C3 Takes Soom Soom Nationwide
Chart Time | Online Grocery Demographics
UPS Launches Hyperlocal Delivery
AUTONOMY | Zipline Partners with Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic, one of the nation’s top ranked medical centers, is teaming up with drone startup Zipline, to handle the aerial delivery of medication. Starting in 2025, pharmaceuticals will be dropped off directly at patients’ homes and yards, with the program set to eventually expand to cover lab samples, prescription meals, medical / surgical supplies, and items for hospital-at-home services. Cleveland Clinic will use Zipline’s Platform 2 system, which can complete a 10-mile delivery in about 10 minutes.
The Big Picture: Pharmaceutical and medical supply delivery is emerging as a real sweet spot for drones, as the items are generally both light and time sensitive, and the end customer often has limited mobility. Currently, most of these Cleveland Clinic deliveries are handled by auto courier or ground delivery, meaning there’s a true opportunity to take cars and trucks off the road. While Zipline has been delivering medical products, starting in Rwanda, since 2016, we’ve recently seen other competitors move into this category: just two weeks ago Amazon announced its Prime Air drone service was going to handle Rx deliveries in Texas.
BRANDS | C3 to Expand Mediterranean Chain Soom Soom
C3 by Sbe is teaming up with Craveworthy Brands to expand mediterranean concept Soom Soom. This partnership puts heavy-hitters Sam Nazarian and former Jimmy John’s CEO Gregg Majewski on the same page, as they work to grow the restaurant from six locations to 80 by the end of 2027. The restaurant, which says to “think Lawrence of Arabia meets Casablanca” was born in 2016 and currently largely operates in the LA area; the company plans to focus its next wave of stores on college towns and transportation hubs.
The Big Picture: C3 made its initial mark in the ghost kitchen / virtual brand game; it’s still working on that concept, as seen by developments like its recent foray into serving Krispy Rice sushi at TGI Fridays. The company also operates a number of mini food halls, dubbed Citizens Food Halls, where it brings its brands together under one roof; these tend to be located in business districts of major cities. With Soom Soom, C3 seems to be further evolving its playbook, albeit in a familiar direction: many of these new locales will be traditional brick and mortar franchises.
CHART TIME | Grocery Delivery More Popular With the Youth
Sometimes it helps to have the data, even when the findings aren’t unexpected. Case in point, a new study from PYMNTS shows that online grocery sales are more popular with younger shoppers than older ones. 12.8% of Millennials only buy groceries online, while 51.5% do a mix of online and in-sore, and 35.7% do in-store only. Compare that to baby boomers and seniors: 71.9% are still shopping in-store only. Interestingly, Gen Z reports they shop online less than Millennials, but perhaps this is because their parents are still shopping for them?
LOGISTICS | UPS Rolls Out Hyperlocal Delivery
Parcel giant UPS is rolling out a new option — called Hyperlocal — focused on providing select customers a fast next-day service in a given metropolitan area. Analysts suspect the service is meant for customers that have a distribution center within 100 miles of the delivery address; packages are meant to be picked up from the retailer’s fulfillment center in the very early morning, moved through UPS’ morning presorting process and then delivered to customers mid-day. Customers can place an order for delivery via this process as late as 9 PM the preceding day.
The Big Picture: Analysts suspect this is a relaunch of a similar service UPS ran a few years prior, where it worked with large retailers like Target and Best Buy. The earlier program withered in 2019, as FedEx won over Best Buy with an offering of its own. Amazon has also launched a similar product, as it reworks its fulfillment services to be segmented into eight regional zones. In relaunching the service, it’s expected that UPS will make use of existing complimentary assets that it owns, like crowdsourcing platform Roadie and warehouse sharing network Ware2Go.
A Few Good Links
How one delivery service partner grew her business delivering for Amazon. Frozen food delivery co Yelloh (formerly Schwan’s) closes 90 fulfillment centers. Denny’s net income drops 54%. Instacart partners with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science for ad verification. Premiere Food Trucks builds 40th coach for Cousins Maine Lobster. McDonald’s continues to test to-go oriented concept in Fort Worth, Texas. Fat Brands tries dual Fat Burger and Round Table Pizza build outs. Ground parcel rates fall. Why friend recommendations matter for ecommerce. Customers cite preferred payment methods, free shipping as key motivators when choosing an online merchant. Amazon testing two-legged robot.
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