Wakefern helps make recipes more ‘shoppable’

Grocery cooperative Wakefern Food Corp. has teamed up with online recipe network Chicory to provide ShopRite customers with “shoppable recipes.”

Under the partnership, announced this week, shoppers will be able to send recipe ingredients directly to virtual carts on ShopRite.com. The companies said the functionality integrates the online recipe search and grocery ordering processes for consumers.

Instead of writing down a recipe list and hunting for the ingredients in store aisles, customers can find millions of recipes from Chicory’s digital network and then populate the ingredients into an online basket at ShopRite and pick up their orders at the store or have them delivered.

Chicory announced an online recipe partnership with Campbell's Kitchen earlier this month.

Wakefern and Chicory will provide shoppable recipes from across Chicory’s network of over 1,000 recipe sites and 3.6 million recipes. The service launched first at ShopRite and is scheduled to launch at Wakefern’s The Fresh Grocer retail banner in the coming months.

“We are excited to partner with Chicory, a market leader in providing shoppable recipes to customers,” commented Steve Henig, vice president of digital commerce and analytics at Keasbey, N.J.-based Wakefern. “This is just another way we are working to make the online shopping experience for our customers even better.”

The Chicory service works as follows: ShopRite customers choose a recipe from Chicory’s network of recipe sites, scroll to the bottom of the ingredients list and click “Get Ingredients,” enter their ZIP code and select ShopRite as their retailer, and pick a nearby store. Next, they sign into their ShopRite.com account (or register for one), and all of the recipe ingredients will be loaded into their online shopping cart. Upon complete the purchase, they then select delivery or store pickup to get their recipe ingredients.

New York-based Chicory noted that the integration will build its retailer capabilities in the Northeast and bolster Wakefern’s e-commerce presence by adding another feature to the ShopRite from Home online grocery platform. As part of that service, ShopRite associates personally select all food and other products for online orders for delivery or pickup.

“Chicory is proud to partner with Wakefern Food Corp. to bring recipe ingredients to the doors of consumers across the Northeast,” Yuni Sameshima, co-founder and CEO of Chicory, said in a statement. “They’ve been incredibly hands-on with our partnership, so it’s clear that they are committed to and believe in driving grocery e-commerce forward through innovative technologies. Wakefern has approached this partnership with the shopper experience as first priority.”

Other Chicory partners include Walmart, Amazon, Peapod and Instacart as well as manufacturers Campbell’s, Mondelez, Hershey’s, Unilever, General Mills, Perdue, Tyson and Chobani.

Overall, Wakefern’s 50 independent members operate 354 supermarkets under the ShopRite, The Fresh Grocer, Price Rite and Dearborn Market banners in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Virginia.