With this acquisition, Instacart is expanding its enterprise technology portfolio to further support its retail partners’ ecommerce needs, investing in more innovative technology solutions that help retailers.

By Emily Boes | October 8, 2021

Instacart, an online grocery platform in North America, announced its acquisition of FoodStorm, a SaaS order management system (OMS) that powers end-to-end order-ahead and catering experiences for grocery retailers. With this acquisition, Instacart is expanding its enterprise technology portfolio to further support its retail partners’ ecommerce needs, investing in more innovative technology solutions that help retailers grow, compete and better meet the evolving needs of their customers.

FoodStorm has developed a comprehensive SaaS offering that covers multi-channel ordering — ecommerce, phone or in-store kiosk — order management, and payment and fulfillment. Its technology also integrates easily with a large variety of third-party systems including point of sale systems (POS) and offers customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities that help grocers collect feedback, market their offerings and leverage promotional features.

FoodStorm was founded 14 years ago and has developed strong partnerships with a number of Instacart’s existing retail partners, including Albertsons Companies banners Balducci’s and Kings Food Markets, as well as Bi-Rite Market, Mollie Stone’s Markets, Uncle Giuseppe’s and Roche Brothers Supermarkets. Looking ahead, Instacart will make FoodStorm’s technology available to more retailers through Instacart’s enterprise technology offering. In addition to acquiring FoodStorm’s technology and tools, Instacart is also excited to welcome the talented FoodStorm team, which is based in the U.S. and Melbourne, Australia, to Instacart.

“As a retailer enablement platform, Instacart is focused on growing our partners’ businesses by investing in innovative new technologies and services that deliver significant value to them and their customers,” said Mark Schaaf, chief technology officer of Instacart. “Our goal is to help our retail partners increase their sales and ensure more of their customers’ everyday meals come from the grocery store. That’s why we’re excited to welcome the talented FoodStorm team to Instacart and integrate their end-to-end order-ahead and catering platform into Instacart’s leading enterprise offering. For retailers, this new enterprise solution helps them bring even more of their inventory online, enhance their ecommerce capabilities, grow their business and meet the evolving needs of their customers. And, for customers, this unlocks a healthier, more affordable alternative to restaurant delivery — creating an easier way for people to order prepared foods online directly from their favorite grocers.”

Order-ahead technology solutions provide grocery retailers with a significant growth opportunity. On the Instacart platform, customers who purchase prepared foods and catering items like hot and cold side dishes, cakes and sushi from the grocery store have significantly larger baskets and shop more frequently than those customers who do not. For retailers, order-ahead items and prepared foods are also typically more profitable than traditional groceries like produce and package goods.

“I’m incredibly proud of what the FoodStorm team has achieved for our partners. We’ve developed market-leading software that makes it easier for grocers to execute on prepared food and catering orders more efficiently, and track everything from one central location. This is a huge growth opportunity for grocers, and we’ve seen increased demand for our products as more customers are searching for seamless online and in-store ordering capabilities,” said Rob Hill, FoodStorm CEO. “Grocery is an incredibly complex retail category, making the need for enterprise-grade solutions like FoodStorm and Instacart critical to the long-term success of the industry we all rely on to put food on our tables. We’re excited about this next chapter as we join the Instacart team and create new ways for retailers to serve the ever-changing needs of their businesses and customers.”

Instacart’s enterprise technology today powers the comprehensive ecommerce platforms of more than 175 local, regional and national grocers across North America, including Costco Canada, Heinen’s, Sprouts, The Fresh Market and Wegmans. Instacart first began offering enterprise technology to grocery partners in 2017. Since then, the company has continued to make significant investments in its enterprise business, scaling its engineering team and developing new technologies for grocers.

Instacart shoppers offer same-day delivery and pickup services to bring fresh groceries and everyday essentials to busy people and families across the U.S. and Canada. Instacart has partnered with more than 600 national, regional and local retailers, including unique brand names, to deliver from nearly 55,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities in North America.