Jet.com helps food shoppers meet dietary needs

Walmart’s Jet.com is catering to grocery shoppers with specific dietary requirements with the help of food search and discovery technology from Spoon Guru.

Jet.com is the first U.S. retailer to adopt London-based Spoon Guru’s platform, which has been used by U.K. supermarket chain Tesco since November 2017.

When shopping at Jet.com, customers now can filter their food searches by using specific dietary attributes, ranging from allergies and intolerances (such as to milk, gluten or tree nuts) to healthier choices like low saturated fat or high fiber and to individual dietary requirements such as vegan, vegetarian, paleo or kosher.

According to Markus Stripf, co-founder and co-CEO of Spoon Guru, 64% of the world’s population is on some form of exclusion diet. Spoon Guru also reports on its website that shoppers have an average of 3.3 dietary preferences. In addition, 57% of consumers will shop elsewhere to get specific food, and 84% would switch supermarkets if it better supports their health and wellness needs.

“Whether this is due to allergy, intolerance or health and lifestyle choices, the demand for a more personalized approach to food shopping is clear. With today’s technological advancements, customers — especially in the U.S. — are looking for a more tailored shopping experience, as well as an easy and safe solution for finding the right food,” Stripf explained. “It’s a delight to work with Jet and help transform the consumer experience for their shoppers.”

Jet.com’s product catalog is optimized for high-level personalization using Spoon Guru's proprietary TAGS technology. The tech firm said TAGS employs a combination of artificial intelligence, algorithms and human expertise to make products more accessible, searchable and discoverable to people with specific dietary and lifestyle preferences. The platform analyzes product ingredients and nutritional value and designates appropriate dietary tags to each item, which Spoon Guru said allows large, unstructured data sets to be searched more easily and filtered more accurately to deliver more relevant choices to consumers.

Since implementing the technology, Tesco has seen sizable increases in its basket conversion rate, including up to 420% for some search terms, according to Spoon Guru.

Jet.com’s use of Spoon Guru’s platform comes as the Walmart e-commerce subsidiary bolsters its grocery offering. In September, Jet.com introduced a “city grocery experience” for New York City residents that offers a curated selection of groceries, everyday essentials and other merchandise geared toward city dwellers plus enhanced customer service and same- or next-day delivery. When announcing the launch, Jet.com said it aims to “rehumanize” e-commerce and provide a more “intentional catalog” that’s personalized and relevant to city consumers’ living needs and shopping preferences.