Uber & Instacart Unveil New Health Initiatives
Ebike fires surge in NYC, DoorDash adds Pet Supplies Plus, Grubhub Community Impact Report
We need a special word for days when all four of the big domestic 3PDs have an announcement… email us back if you have any ideas. But read on for news from UE, IC, GH, and DD. (And some less fun news about e-bike battery fires.)
This week’s edition is brought to you by Woolpert.
Today:
Uber Eats Adds New SNAP/EBT Features
Grim Milestone for NYC E-bike Fires
Chart Time | Grubhub Community Impact Report
Pet Supplies Plus Crowds DoorDash’s Doggy Aisle
3PD | Uber Unveils New SNAP/EBT Initiative
Uber Eats just announced a slew of new initiatives, aiming to increase access to nutritious foods, primarily by improving SNAP/EBT uptake. By 2025, the 3PD aims to offer access to SNAP/EBT delivery to all eligible grocery partners. On the consumer side, SNAP users will get two months of free deliveries for any order linked to a valid EBT card. To push enrollment, UE is also going to make SNAP eligibility info more obvious in-app. And since “food as medicine” is so hot right now, Uber Health will allow health providers to order grocery items on behalf of patients, with payment linked to participating health plans.
The Big Picture: Like we said last week when Thrive Market became the first nationwide web-based grocer to accept SNAP/EBT, food purchasing assistance subsidies are the hottest battleground in the grocery delivery space these days. And with food insecurity up 45% since 2021 (grim,) all the delivery providers see tens of millions in new customers up for grab. Proving the point, Instacart had new food access news this morning as well, as it’s teaming up with No Kid Hungry and Mercy Housing to launch a research initiative to improve access to nutrition in affordable housing communities. As part of the project, 200 families will receive nutrition education, Instacart+ memberships, and $40/mo in grocery stipends; the one year study will see if that pushes people to eat healthier food.
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VEHICLES | E-bike Fires Surge in NYC
Fire deaths are on the rise in New York City, with 106 victims in 2023, the first time in 20 years that more than 100 people have lost their lives in that grizzly manner. The city’s fire department is blaming it on a rise in cheap e-bikes, with faulty lithium battery explosions accounting for eight deaths in Manhattan, and ten in the other boroughs. Last year, batteries caused an additional 220+ non-fatal fires as well. Fire deaths hit a record low back in 2017, when they only caused 47 fatalities, suggesting that there’s more at work here than just additional electric bikes on the streets.
The Big Picture: For its part, FDNY reminds citizens to only use batteries that have been certified by a testing lab like UL or ETL, not to use extension cords, and to ensure the use of the original charging cable; that latter one can be tricky, as many low-cost electric devices all use generic-looking barrel connectors, meaning you can accidentally plug in a charger that’s delivering too much power for your specific battery. The 3PDs are doing their part as well, with DoorDash pushing for consumer safety standards and Grubhub incentivizing the use of JOCO e-bikes with $80/mo stipends.
CHART TIME | Grubhub Gives Back
Grubhub just released its 2023 Community Impact Report, highlighting all the ways the 3PD gave back to the community last year. Among other feats, the Grubhub Community Fund supported 80+ orgs last year, a YoY increase of 40%.
3PD | Pet Supplies Plus Launches on DoorDash
Ok if there’s one thing that’s giving “food as health” a run for its money, it’s “damn people really love their pets.” Case in point, DoorDash just announced a new retail partner: Pet Supplies Plus. The Livonia, MI-based retailer appears to be adding all 720 of its locations to the 3PD, an impressive feat given that Pet Supplies Plus operates on a franchise model. But that same business model — which often makes it trickier to apply across the board discounts — may explain why the two companies aren’t celebrating this partnership with the traditional $15 or 20% off promo we’ve seen when DD added retailers like Best Buy or La Michoacana.
The Big Picture: Delivery customers sure have a lot of ways to get their kibble and bits these days. “Since launching the Pets vertical in 2020, DoorDash has more than 400,000 pet products available for on-demand delivery,” noted Fuad Hannon, VP of New Verticals. From a consumer experience, that can make comparison shopping somewhat confusing. Let’s say you and your furball are on the market for “Tidy Cats Free & Clean Clumping Unscented Cat Litter (20 lb.)” It’s $12.98 at Pet Supplies Plus, but only $12.49 over at PetSmart; oh but at Petco it’s $11.99, marked down from $13.49. The unified search on DoorDash doesn’t present these in any particularly cohesive order, omitting some, adding in other less relevant results, and of course highlighting that you can also get the same product at the grocery store, pharmacy or big box retailer. It’s one thing to search “pad thai” and get 100 different options, because you know each restaurant makes theirs a little differently; not quite the same when it’s absorbent clay for your cat shit.
A Few Good Links
Data shows consumers continue to demand more off-premises dining. Dutch Bros testing mobile ordering. Cunningham Restaurant Group launches centralized delivery kitchens, with Empower Delivery. Cava foot traffic up 10%. Wonder opens in a Walmart (a bit different than the Upper West Side.) Shopee takes instant delivery to Johor, Malaysia. Uber mulls $100M investment in Moove. OSHA violations rack up at Boring Co. UPS’ Amazon revenue dips 5%. Logistics firms make 573 layoffs coast-to-coast. Wendy’s rolls out dynamic pricing (just call it “happy hour” and people wouldn’t complain so much.) Barbora Polska ends delivery operations in Poland. President Biden to attend Teamster roundtable. Brinker adds execs. Ottonomy and Sodexo bring delivery robots to Universidad Europa in Spain.
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