Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace is the first retailer to enable catering services via Instacart and the Foodstorm order management system to customers in New Jersey and New York.
“Instacart Platform technology has helped more customers discover our catering selection, resulting in incremental sales for this important part of our business,” said Russell McVeigh, catering director at Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace, in a statement. “The Instacart App and FoodStorm OMS have both been important to supporting our e-commerce business. During the busy holiday season when catering and prepared foods are in peak demand, we’ve been able to grow our online sales by nearly 62% by having the right infrastructure in place to handle that volume without crippling our in-store operations or without having to scale our staff."
Instacart announced yesterday that grocers can use Foodstorm’s order management system through the Instacart app to offer online ordering and delivery of catering items. Foodstorm is a catering management system that works with Instacart.
“Catering represents one of the highest margin categories for grocers, driving meaningful incremental growth for their business as consumer demand increases. In the first half of 2022, we’ve seen nearly a 20% increase in customers searching for ‘catering’ on Instacart compared to the same period last year,” said Jeanette Barlow, VP of product at Instacart, in a statement.
“Historically, ordering ahead from the grocery store is labor intensive–often using paper tickets or other manual systems–and inefficient for both retailers and customers,” she continued. “By connecting FoodStorm OMS [online management system] with the Instacart App, we’re able to help grocers meet catering demand by offering a comprehensive, omnichannel experience for customers using Carrot Order Ahead and scale the reach of a highly profitable part of their business.”
Foodstorm system integration into the Instacart app extends the Carrot Order Ahead service; the service enables fulfillment options including next-day or scheduled delivery or pickup. The integration also allows a customer to purchase miscellaneous items not related to the catering meals, like beverages and paper plates, when placing a catering order.
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