WEEKLY ROUNDUP – WEEK OF 2.14.2022

February 18, 2022

Here are this week’s top 5 relevant and enlightening stories curated from our team of strategists and food enthusiasts:

Best Brands on Instagram

Instagram has over 200 million businesses that use its platform and 90% of users follow at least one of them. Visual content remains a crucial part of any brand’s marketing strategy. This post highlights standout brands and a snapshot of their strategies. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-brands-on-instagram

Amazon Continues to Dominate

Amazon’s path to grocery dominance is taking hold as new Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh locations are opening. With little crossover in the customer bases between them, Amazon has the unique ability to fuel both stores and pass on savings to both customer bases. https://thehustle.co/%f0%9f%a5%ac-amazon-fresh-or-whole-foods/

Text-to-Order Is Here

Smoothie King, through a partnership with HungerRush and its OrderAI solution, is testing a text-to-order platform in Chicago and Jacksonville with the goal of giving customers a more modern experience while increasing digital sales for franchisees. https://chainstoreage.com/smoothie-king-pilots-text-based-ordering

New Luxury In Fine Dining

While versions of vegan caviar have been around for some time, a new wave of this luxurious dish is catching the excitement of chefs and making its way onto fine dining menus. https://www.eater.com/22924366/vegan-caviar-restaurant-trend-tonburi-seaweed-fine-dining

DoorDash Delivers on Automation

Since purchasing Chowbotics and leveraging its automated vending technology, DoorDash is developing two virtual food brands with a nacho-style menu test underway in Dallas called Tex-Mess. (Subscription necessary.) https://www.businessinsider.com/doordash-trademarks-dashbotics-dash2go-tex-mess-queso-your-way-2022-2

More to come next week!