Grocerant Guru Visits Amazon Go Finds Complexity Free Fabulous Fresh Food Fast

Foodservice Solutions? Grocerant Guru?, Steven Johnson walked through, shopped, and sampled fresh food from Amazon Go and believes that there is no doubt that Amazon reached its goal in providing a ‘better-for-you’ retail experience. Why?

Simple the fresh food was fresh and full flavored and the experience was fast. The store was well designed so that you could with ease find a fresh meal, meal component, or fresh snack item. The incremental benefit was you could buy a loaf of bread, milk, beer, wine, and or chips if you wanted to stock an urban pantry or have the gang over to watch a game.

The technology was seamless you did not notice it unless you were looking up at the ceiling. You could not see the sensors on the shelves detecting when an item picked up or placed back on the shelf. What was noticeable upon reflection was how natural it was. No one missed the cashier, the checkout station, or standing in line. You simply shopped and left. 

Amazon Go is not about replacing some of 3.5 million cashiers reported in the United States in 2016. The number of people involved in retail in my opinion could rise as Amazon expands its technology to other locations.  Jobs may be in not jeopardy if the technology used by Amazon Go is saleable and all indications from Amazon’s  Gianna Puerini the executive in charge of Amazon Go and  Dilip Kumar, Amazon Go vice president of technology that is the case.

Amazon Go has created a platform where consumesr can get fresh food fast, meals and meal components in a complexity free setting that will empower consumer to buy fresh food more often. It will help evolve from retail work space from cashiers too skilled cooks, meal assembly workers all while empowering sustainable local specialty outlets the ilk of bakery’s, butchers, breweries incremental avenues of distribution.

The store size helped with the speed of service with only 1,800 square feet. Without room allocated for cashier’s there was plenty of food, and beverages choice without choice overload. This store is about stocking the shelfs with food consumer want. Amazon Go is not about slotting fees while they did have traditional CPG bread, milk, chips, and beer clearly the grocerant niche fresh prepared food was the star of the show. 

So what did we try? We tried the Alki Bakery Club Sandwich, Molly’s Tortellini Pasta Salad, and Portland Style Coconut Dream Cake.  All were grocerant niche fresh full flavored portable and portioned for either one or two people. We have at this point three insights:

1.      Just like using your iPhone (or any smart phone) for the first time you told yourself this is great. Sure we have all learned smart phone are not perfect but the fact is we now want them to do more and more. In the case of Amazon Go we will want more and more fresh food options and I’m sure they will evolve. Note to Gianna I wanted fresh coffee this morning.  

2.      The store size was just fine, the assortment of food and legacy CPG products exceed my expectations. However food manufactures will have to up their game to maintain market share, packaging, freshness, and flavor appeared stayed.

3.      There is no doubt that this template is working in an urban footprint but clearly Foodservice Solutions? Grocerant Scorecards indicate that the unmet demand from consumers for fresh fast retail food experiences will drive this technology into suburbs as sure as autonomous vehicles can’t be stopped.

Invite Foodservice Solutions? to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru?. Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: [email protected] or 253-759-7869