What a year it’s been! It seems like only yesterday we announced FoodStorm had been acquired by Instacart! Looking back over the past twelve months, I’m inspired by the amazing impact our team has been able to make for our retailer partners, how working with the broader Instacart team has accelerated our momentum, and it’s exciting to know we’re still only getting started.
One of our achievements this past 12 months has been the multi-faceted work to integrate FoodStorm with many of the powerful technologies Instacart offers retailers. More specifically, FoodStorm now integrates with the Instacart App, allowing retailers who use the Instacart App to gain exposure for their catering and prepared food items and benefit from the order management support of our software. This was one of dozens of product enhancements released this year, some of which included Dynamic Delivery Times, Recurring Orders, Closure Enhancements, Automated Service Charges and improvements to FoodStorm’s Credits and Refunds processes. These last few months, we also launched two major releases: Real-Time Ordering and Holiday Peak Enhancements.
Real-Time Ordering is a pivotal expansion in functionality for FoodStorm, unlocking a whole new range of possibilities for retailers. Now retailers can use FoodStorm to manage made-to-order items, such as a sandwich bar or a pizza counter, along with their catering items. This is an exciting extension of FoodStorm’s offering and means Instacart with the power of FoodStorm, is one of the only platforms in the world where retailers can sell and manage any type of fresh food order with any type of lead time through one integrated system.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas on the horizon, our suite of new and improved features within our Holiday Peak Enhancements couldn’t be more timely. These features allow retailers to handle their holiday catering rushes and optimize their menus and ordering channels, ensuring they can maximize their revenue and operations while providing quality service to their customers. Our team couldn’t be more proud to bring this functionality to our customers and already see the amazingly positive impact it’s having on them and their teams.
With all these exciting product developments, FoodStorm has continued to be recognized as the leading catering and prepared meals solution, leading to even further adoption by retailers. Over the past year we have partnered with a record number of new grocery retailers including retailers such as Fareway Stores, all five Good Food Holdings banners (Bristol Farms, New Seasons Market, Lazy Acres, New Leaf Community Markets and Metropolitan Market), Plum Market, Edward’s Food Giant and Stew Leonard’s. We’ve continued to help retailers streamline their online and in-store processes, helping them grow catering sales and reduce administrative work for their staff. Stew Leonard’s is a prime example of how FoodStorm has positively impacted their business, seeing a 70% increase in orders since implementing FoodStorm earlier this year! Playing an important role supporting these retailers, our Implementation and Support Team has continued to deliver best-in-class customer support, writing dozens of help articles, hosting monthly upskilling webinars and answering thousands of support tickets.
More broadly, this year Instacart launched Instacart Platform, the integrated suite of solutions for retailers to power their future in grocery using their stores with our technology. FoodStorm is a key pillar of the Platform, powering Carrot Order Ahead, the catering solution offered to help retailers gain more ‘share of stomach’ for customer meals. And just last month Instacart launched Connected Stores, a bundle of new and existing Instacart Platform technologies that will help grocers build a unified, seamless, personalized experience both online and in-store for their customers. FoodStorm’s Department Orders technology, which helps power our Real-Time Ordering, was announced as part of the launch, showcasing how our new kitchen display system and integration with physical docket printers. Connected Stores debuted at the 2022 GroceryShop event last month, showing off our FoodStorm functionality in-booth by powering the juice bar for attendees!
Now that 2023 is only a few short months away, it’s exciting to think what our team will have accomplished by this time next year. Thank you to our FoodStorm team members, the broader Instacart team for your incredible support, and to our customers for making this last year one of our best ones yet!
Onwards and upwards to more in 2023!
Rob Hill
