Albertsons helps make recipes more ‘shoppable’

Albertsons Cos. aims to make shopping for recipe ingredients at the grocery store more of a turnkey process for consumers.

The supermarket giant has expanded its partnership with contextual commerce advertising platform Chicory to create a direct “shoppable” integration. With the move, online grocery customers at Albertsons and 15 of its other store banners can send products straight to their virtual shopping carts via Chicory’s shoppable recipe technology and in-recipe contextual ads, New York-based Chicory said Wednesday.

Previously, Albertsons was available as a retailer in Chicory’s online recipe network network but used a third-party order-fulfillment option, Chicory noted. The companies said the new integration provides a more seamless shopping experience by melding the online recipe search and grocery ordering processes for Albertsons Cos. customers within Chicory’s recipe network.

“We are focused on meeting our customers when and where they are thinking about food, providing them with great value and a convenient experience,” Usman Humayun, group vice president of enterprise marketing at Albertsons Cos., said in a statement. “Our integration with Chicory enables us to offer our great deals to customers using online recipes and connect them directly to our convenient digital shopping platform.”

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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 on an Albertsons Cos. supermarket website and pick up their orders at the store or have them delivered.

To enable that capability, Chicory said, Albertsons allocated engineering resources to build the infrastructure for seamless integration with the Chicory tech stack. The project gives Albertsons shoppers in Chicory’s recipe network a streamlined add-to-cart and checkout process, while Albertsons benefits from higher e-commerce traffic and order volumes, Chicory reported.

Plans also call for Albertsons to pilot Chicory’s “Featured Retailer” solution, an advertising product that gives the retailer a special visual spotlight within Chicory’s shoppable recipe experience. Chicory said the test will boost shopper acquisition and drive incremental sales for Albertsons.

“We are thrilled to partner with Albertsons and help them leverage the power of recipes to inspire consumers and drive commerce,” Chicory CEO and co-founder Yuni Baker-Saito stated. “Our integration signifies growing demand for contextual commerce and seamless online shopping experiences—two essential components to a competitive e-commerce strategy today.”

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Along with Albertsons, the more than 70 retailers are now integrated with Chicory and feeding off the traffic generated by its over 5,200 recipe websites, including Walmart Kroger, Target, H-E-B, Stop & Shop, Whole Foods Market and ShopRite.

Overall, Albertsons Cos. operates 2,272 retail food and drug stores in 34 states and the District of Columbia under such banners as Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, Acme, Tom Thumb, Randalls, United Supermarkets, Pavilions, Star Market, Haggen, Carrs, Kings Food Markets and Balducci’s Food Lovers Market.