Food commerce & data blind spots
Reimagining Food Commerce for Health, Sustainability, and Consumer Impact
Broken payment systems of food commerce
“There are no existing systems for rewarding people based on the quantified environmental and health impact from what they are eating.
There is a complete lack of any personalized feedback, rewards, or community from food purchases .”
…
Awhile back I gave a very general overview on the crypto tokenization and “food fintech” spaces, but still there are not any payments adjacent platforms that directly give people feedback on what they are buying for food and beyond.
Some platforms like Upside give general cash back rewards from grocery purchases and Zoey Deschanel’s Merryfield simply gives rewards based off the general food brand one buys. However, there is a complete lack of any personal feedback or rewards tied to specific products purchases and a lack of any real social or community elements either.
But the reality is that the tech capability is fully here to give people meaningful feedback on what they're buying for food. Whether between receipt scanning, POS integrations and AI, we can now automatically break down pretty clearly and instantly what food purchase choices people are making. Think of it like a traffic light system - green for the really good stuff, yellow for the middle ground, and red for items that might need a second thought.
As it relates to AI, it is seamless to create a score system for thousands of items and imagine having a smart digital wallet that doesn't just store your payment info, but actually learns your shopping patterns and gives you personalized suggestions. The technology's even getting to the point where AI could serve up advice in the voices of your favorite health experts or chefs.
Conversely, for a case study on the current reality of food shopping, walk into any major city’s grocery stores on a Sunday night- (whether Trader Joes, Erewhon, Whole Foods, or local grocers’) and observe the hordes of people determined to get their favorite items for the week. It’s not just that items are a lot more expensive nowadays, but realistically very few of these people are fully locked into the actual health, value and sustainability of what they are buying for the next week or in tune with new product combinations they would enjoy eating. And despite the quantifiable economic impact of what they are buying on their own health and the environment there are no ways for these people to get corresponding rewards and feedback from what they are buying.
The payment problem & alternative rails:
Due to the way current credit payment rails work, credit card companies have limited methods for having any SKU data tied to what people are actually buying at grocery stores and food merchants. Alternative payment systems including ones built on BNPL rails (even if people don’t actually finance purchases) or Defi web3 rails or even specially trusted level 3 credit card rails, can much better allow for a product specific rewards system.
On the merchant side, food commerce is traditionally a high volume, low margin business, but payment rails and rewards systems still have not been optimized with this in mind despite innovations now available. Merchants have to deal with 4-5 percent aggregate processing fees plus an even higher liability percentages for spoilage and returns (national distributors can be a huge pain). Reward systems that do exist often lack customization or any personal touch or feedback. And, traditional data systems make it impossible for most stores to monetize their community of shoppers in ideal ways although both Erewhon’s and Costco’s paid memberships are positive signs of what is possible.
Our solutions & more:
Shhh… Stay tuned for more about our digital “food wallet” and rewards options.