Thursday, June 26, 2014

Amazon Continues Disruption Growth Hacking Meal Delivery


Dinner at your doorstep Seattle Spotlight a new meal delivery fresh food service from Amazon will clearly be disruptive. Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru™ regular updates on this blog about Amazon Seattle Spotlight may be coming to an end.
Seattle technology information service Geek Wire verified that Amazon the “Seattle giant is quietly moving into the takeout business. Amazon is launching a food takeout service as part of Amazon Local beginning in Seattle and will compete with companies like GrubHub and DeliveryHero.”
It is unclear if the service will be named Seattle Spotlight now that the test seems to be over, well almost over.  As GeekWire reported that the “new service was available in the Amazon Local iPhone app earlier this week, but was disabled Wednesday due to a bug.”
Amazon has delivered groceries for a long time and has been testing Amazon Spotlight for about 18 months. Launching fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat food for delivery via mobile phone places Amazon directly in the center of the fastest growing retail food sector the Grocerant Niche.  
An Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch that the new fresh food delivery service may follow a similar slow rollout testing more in Seattle before launching in additional cities.
Here is how Rebekah Denn reported that Amazon via “Seattle Spotlight” “ is offering  a “blend of takeout and home cooking, ranging from opening a ready-to-heat container of Pike Place Chowder to grilling your own Skillet burger patty and frying your own fries.”

Restaurants contract with Amazon to sell, cook and delivery preapproved menu items. That my friends is disruptive. Denn went on to explain in detail how it works and she was impressed that Amazon “with the selection, but not too surprised by it once I heard that Jonathan Hunt, formerly of Boom Noodle and Lowell-Hunt Catering, is the chef in charge of the Seattle-only program”….

How do restaurants figure out how to deconstruct their dishes for a home cook to prepare, or to package them for delivery so they're still good to eat? In La Spiga's case, I've found it fairly idiot-proof to grill my prosciutto piadina (part of an $11.95 box lunch) at home to melt the cheese. The Samurai Noodle ramen has also come with straightforward directions, taking a few minutes to boil the noodles, warm the broth and pork, and add the pre-sliced toppings.

"We thought it was a neat way to offer better service without... the extra expense of opening a restaurant," said La Spiga co-owner Sabrina Tinsley.

Working with Hunt, "we selected items we thought would travel well. We did a series of experiments, obviously, to make sure they would get there the same way," she said. Soup, for instance, "was a bit of a challenge" on a jostling ride. Baked pastas held up better than boiled noodles.

I asked how the salad, one of my old La Spiga favorites, arrived so crisp and fresh despite what I assumed was a day's delay. "I try to have my staff be really careful about the way they cut it. If you're just slamming the knife down on it it's going to bruise it and brown and deterioriate faster," Tinsley said.

It’s not clear what types of restaurants Amazon has partner with, today how they differentiate in a crowded market will be key to success as companies the ilk of
PostmatesCaviar and Eat24already deliver in Seattle along with a plethora of independent restaurants and most national chains.


Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  if you are interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participationdifferentiation and individualization or you can learn more at Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us

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