Walmart Chef

Submitted 2 years ago

While watching a video on why cook-at-home meal kits are having difficulty retaining customers, I thought of my local Walmart, where I tend to buy my meats and produce.

The video stated that the overriding issue with meal service kit customer retention was the additional cost of shipping. This led me to consider how Walmart could perform a similar service in certain communities, while eliminating shipping entirely.

A service like Walmart Chef would allow customers who live in a city with a grocery-enhanced store (such as a Super Walmart) to use the Walmart website and app to choose from a dozen different dinner choices per week. Customers would simply choose the dinners they want to cook that week. They would also choose in settings how many people are in their family (2, 4, or 6), as well as dietary restrictions (if any). Dietary restrictions would automatically eliminate those meals that the family could not enjoy from the choices offered.

Meals would be based on the fresh produce, meats, and other items that Walmart already sells. Associates in Walmart stores would then choose the precise amount of each ingredient based on the number of people who would be enjoying the meal (except oils and spices) and box them in smaller paperboard boxes, add a menu card and seal the box up with a printed sticker with the ingredients and the customer's name on it.

Items in the box could also include rice, pasta, canned tomato sauces, etc. It would be a way to highlight certain brands (or Walmart owned brands) for their quality.

While shipping has a deleterious effect on other meal kit services, Walmart's service would be different in that customers would simply pick up the meal kit box from inside their local Walmart. No shipping needed (unless they are paying for a Walmart delivery service - such as Walmart Plus - already).

If one started ordering this Monday, the first box would be ready two weeks later. By ordering two weeks in advance, Walmart would be able to logistically support the extra produce and meat demands at each store.

A service such as Walmart Chef would have all of the advantages of traditional meal delivery services (no food waste, help with meal ideas, convenience) while removing the single biggest cost issue of shipping, as well as eliminating big cardboard boxes, concerns with leaving a delivered box on one's doorstep while being stuck at work, and cold storage pack waste.

This method has many touch-point advantages for Walmart stores. It brings the customer into the store to pick up the box (where they might purchase other items to go with the meal such as wine or sodas or bread), to pick up other non-meal related items, and even allows Walmart to add coupons in the box alongside the menu cards, for other items. By making the purchase meal-driven, and making it easy to plan a week's worth of meals at a time, more customers will be tied into Walmart as their purchase location choice.

Other options:

Walmart creates smaller plastic oil and liquid ingredient bottles and spice packets for sole use in creating the meal kits.

Walmart creates a drive up window for customers to simply drive up and get their Walmart Chef orders. A similar window would be inside the store for foot traffic.