Online Menu Planning Tool Clicks Into Kroger

A subscription-based online meal-planning tool for busy families is integrating its offering with Kroger Co., providing its members a quick way to order meals online from Kroger, Fry’s Food, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, Pick 'n Save and Ralph’s stores.

The Dinner Daily, based in Boston, calls itself “the most flexible and personalized online meal planning service available,” providing paid members weekly meal plans that fit customized food and dietary preferences and maximize use of weekly specials at partnering stores. This addresses the “what’s for dinner?” dilemma plaguing shoppers and providing participating retailers with a tool that helps build larger shopping baskets and can improve profits by driving sales of their private labels.

Integrating the offer with Kroger will provide Daily Dinner users access to omnichannel fulfillment options, including store pickup and delivery. These conveniences have become even more pronounced as the coronavirus crisis has led to spikes in meals consumed at home and in online grocery, officials said.

“During the COVID crisis, we’ve seen an unprecedented surge in online ordering and delivery as a convenient and safe way for families to get their weekly groceries,” Laurin Mills, founder of The Dinner Daily, said in a release. “Our new integration with Kroger means our members in 24 states can now easily order their groceries directly from their Dinner Daily shopping list in just a few seconds, saving time and making the shopping experience almost effortless, which benefits both the consumer and the grocer.”

The Dinner Daily’s menus are created for each member each week, using their stated preferences and promotion information gleaned from their preferred store. Members—who pay a subscription fee for access ranging from $4 to $6 per month, depending on the length of their commitment—can change anything on their menu, or add additional items to their shopping list as needed. A single click will send their items to their Kroger shopping cart for ordering and scheduling delivery or pickup.

Image: The Dinner Daily

A startup offering some similar basket-building and recipe-based meal-planning capabilities, known as Anycart, earlier this year fast-tracked a rollout available into Whole Foods and some Albertsons Cos. stores.

The Dinner Daily is currently available at 16,000 U.S. grocery stores.“We know from our members that the hardest part of grocery shopping is meal planning and figuring out what to buy at their grocery store each week. The No. 2 pain point is finding time to get to the store. Now, with our delivery integration with Kroger, we are solving the two biggest challenges of grocery shopping for our Kroger members,” said Mills. “Having a plan that is customized just for you can take all the stress out of making dinners at home. With The Dinner Daily, your plan for a great dinner is ready.”