2020 In Review: E-comm, Recipes and Chicory
It’s hard to believe the year is already coming to an end. 2020 was a whirlwind year for grocery and beyond. Experts suggest that online grocery has accelerated by five years as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. Brands struggled with supply chains as consumers displayed hoarding behaviors, retailers had to handle drastic shifts in market conditions and the industry and consumers alike felt the arrival of The New Normal in all aspects of our lives.
Here at Chicory, we’ve also experienced so many changes. But despite the indelible challenges we all faced, we wanted to take a moment to count the wins as well.
The Industry
In mid March as the Coronavirus pandemic began, we saw recipe traffic skyrocket. This continued through the spring and traffic on Easter 2020 surpassed Thanksgiving 2019, one of the biggest traffic days of the year. Now, as of December 1st, traffic year-to-date is up 90.69% year over year.
As consumers began to take precautionary measures surrounding the virus, we saw online grocery orders spike as well. Now, recipe orders are up 86% year over year, telling us that adoption of online grocery is rapidly increasing. We confirmed this through the fourth edition of our quarterly online grocery survey, which revealed that there are 18% more online grocery users now than there were pre-COVID-19. Many experts expect usership to remain higher than pre-pandemic rates, telling us that online grocery is truly being adopted in many households.
Our Platform
This year, as we sought to provide shopper marketers, CPG brands and retailers with better solutions during online grocery’s ‘time to shine’, we expanded our platform in a number of ways.
Our network of recipe users surpassed 100 million monthly unique views.
Partnered with some incredible publishers, including Food52, Delish, Good Housekeeping, Country Living and Parade.
Built some amazing retailer partnerships, including Target, Kroger and its banners, Stop & Shop, Giant Foods, GIANT Food Stores, MARTINS, SpartanNash and Winn-Dixie.
Growth and Innovation
With all of this happening, we understood that there was a once in a blue moon opportunity for online grocery to catch up to it’s ecommerce counterparts like DTC retail.
Early in the spring, we sought to help our community and industry by providing free shoppable solutions. We heard that supply chain was a major challenge felt by both brands and retailers. To help translate this challenge to consumers shopping recipes, we released a new product called Inventory Optimization, which enables real-time inventory checks for CPG clients. We’re also in trials for an exciting new product.
In the fall, we launched our new website and, shortly thereafter, hosted our first webinar, with incredible panelists from St. Pierre Groupe, Impossible Foods, Banza, Handsome Brook Farms and IRI. (If you missed it, you can find the recording on our blog here!)
It was important to us to help brands and shopper teams better understand evolving consumer behaviors, so we ran a number of consumer surveys surrounding the state of online grocery, recipe usage, and seasonal trends. And we were honored to contribute to industry dialogue with this data in great pieces featured in Food Business News, Progressive Grocer, Food Dive and Forbes’ Technology Council. You can find more articles in our Press section.
Last but certainly not least, we welcomed 9 new members to the Chicory team! Our team has truly grown this year, as has our industry. With all this growth, we’re excited to see what 2021 will bring, and how we can help contribute to the progress our industry is making.