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
Postmates, Caviar 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 participation, differentiation
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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