Uber Ups SNAP EBT Access with Albertsons, Walgreens
Instacart + Empire Company, Grubhub + PetSmart, Waymo hits 150k rides per week
We’ve got plenty of grocery delivery news today, starting with a big SNAP/EBT expansion over at Uber Eats. Meanwhile, Instacart has added Canada’s Empire Company and Grubhub’s got new food for your doggy. Plus, Waymo’s growing like gangbusters!
This week’s edition is brought to you by GetScale.
Today:
Uber SNAPs up Walgreens & Albertsons
lnstacart is Hungry for Canadian Groceries
Chart Time | Waymo Hits 150k
Arf! Grubhub Adds PetSmart
SNAP | Uber Expands EBT Access with Albertsons, Walgreens
Uber Eats is beefing up its food stamps access in a big way, with a slew of new partners accepting SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) payments. Grocery giant Albertsons Companies is joining the initiative via its Albertsons, Safeway, Jewel-Osco and Vons banners, which are popular along the West Coast and in the Midwest. Walgreens is joining on a nationwide basis, as is its NYC-centric Duane Reade subsidiary. To kick things off, Uber is offering EBT users $0 delivery fees on their first three SNAP-eligible orders, as well as a three-month free trial of Uber One.
The Big Picture: Like previous SNAP launches, Uber is powering this program via Forage, a specialty payments platform founded by Instacart and Uber Eats alums. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a big SNAP EBT launch, but it continues to be a growing market for the delivery players, as they look to tap into the 42 million Americans that require nutritional assistance.
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3PD | Instacart Pushes into Canada with Empire Company
Instacart is making inroads into the Great White North, via a new partnership with grocery giant Empire Company Limited. Empire operates Canada’s second largest grocery chain, after Loblaw, with about 1,500 stores from coast to coast via its Sobeys, FreshCo, Farm Boy and Longo’s banners. This new team up will start at 250 Ontario markets before being expanded nationwide.
The Big Picture: While all the other major 3PDs have big international businesses, Canada remains Instacart’s only non-U.S. market (it’s also where company founder Apoorva Mehta grew up.) With this new partnership, Instacart now has deals with the top five Canadian grocers, covering 90% of the nation’s households. Empire isn’t staying monogamous, however, as it also just announced a similar partnership with Uber Eats. Empire also operates its own delivery service — Voilà — and used to have a tie-up with grocery automator Ocado.
CHART TIME | Waymo Keeps Growing
A Waymo employee just shared an illuminating chart, highlighting how quickly Waymo is growing its business, with the AV player just hitting 150,000 trips per week, just two months after hitting the 100k/week benchmark. Do note that the Y-axis is logarithmic, meaning catching up with Uber’s hundreds of millions of rides per week will require a prettttty steep ramp up in Waymo’s hardware supply.
3PD | Grubhub Adds PetSmart
Grubhub continues to broaden its offerings outside of restaurants, with the launch of a new partnership with pet supply retailer PetSmart. The deal adds 14,000 items from 1,400 locations in 50 states (so Alaskans can get a new bit delivered for Balto delivered mid-Iditarod…) The brands are celebrating the launch by offering customers $10 off delivery orders of $40 or more for up to 10 orders until year’s end.
The Big Picture: Grubhub has been belatedly upping its non-resto offerings, in a race to catch up with UE and DD. Those 3PDs also have deals with PetSmart, as well as other animal-oriented brands like Petco and Pet Supplies Plus. Grubhub is still putting up a good fight, as it launches a new ad campaign — Delivery’s Other Half — highlighting its tie up with Amazon Prime.
A Few Good Links
Chipotle sales up 6%. Subway adds $6.99 meal deal. Bun Mee wants to be the Shake Shack of Vietnamese sandwiches (isn’t that what Lee’s Sandwiches is?) Smoothies for Ozempic users. Flashfood updates grocery app. Bowman’s adds Caper Carts. Grocery Outlet loses CEO. Royal Mail adds Wiliot tracking tags. Swiggy eyes $11.3 billion IPO. Indian e-commerce upstart Meesho claims profitability. GM’s Mary Barra talks EVs, AVs and decoupling from China. Volvo takes over Northvolt battery plant. Toast announces Community Award winners. Postmates’ Bastian Lehmann shares details on his new fintech play: Tiptop. FTC fines Lyft over false earnings claims.
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