The world’s supermarkets have done little to innovate since the sneaky psychology of supermarkets was perfected in the 20th century, ushering in a new wave of colourful branding and flashy marketing. While the jury’s still out on whether Amazon will take over the world or if traditional supermarkets will remain relevant, it’s clear that the next race in the evolution of fast-moving consumer goods will be driven by technology. 

Here at Adimo we believe one of the tech arms race’s biggest drivers will be shoppable recipes. Any way you look at it, they just make sense - how convenient is it to find a recipe online, decide to make it, and order all the ingredients you need right then and there? Very! With that convenience - for both the buyer and the seller- in mind, there are a number of ways that shoppable recipes will impact FMCG marketing in the months and years to come.

Who will become “the next supermarket?”

While many turn to Google to discover the best place to put their phone so they don’t spill on it, more will turn to their smartphones and voice-activated assistants for recipe inspiration. For a new generation of home chefs, cooking is not an odious chore, but an experience, and that experience begins with discovery. The biggest recurring pain point in home cooking is deciding what to make and, while recipes abound on the web, few have successfully married inspiration with convenience. Some seek to address this pain with packaged meal kits, while others look for a future in shoppable recipes.

Companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh let customers skip both recipe hunting and grocery shopping by delivering neatly portioned ingredients right to their doorstep. While an elegant solution, it’s not exactly seamless. Meal kits are a totally new service, circumventing the average consumer’s habits and routines rather than enhancing them. Not only does a subscription take some of the magic out of cooking, it also offers a more expensive way to cook – it takes relationships and scale to cut costs in a supply chain that can be passed on to the consumer. It also costs a lot of money to prepare and package everything for the end-user, which brings up the biggest complaint against meal kits – all that packaging!

For FMCG brands and retailers, the widespread success of meal kits would clearly be a disaster, subverting traditional supply chains and eroding brand value. Small wonder that Silicon Valley investors, ever sowing the seeds of disruption, have made big bets on meal kits. If you believe in customer experience as a key driver, however, then it’s far more likely consumers will stick with what they’re already doing, to look for recipes online and do whatever’s easiest to get those groceries on the table.

Shoppable recipes create value throughout the supply chain

Consumers want a way to shop that fits in with their day to day lives, and shoppable recipes are a perfect example of how technology can create a win-win situation. Most people discover recipes through social media and food blogs, which is why it makes sense for brands and retailers to advertise through these channels. Traditional advertising, however, is a distraction for the consumer and offers no guarantee to the ad-buyer that they have actually gained a customer.

Making a recipe shoppable, on the other hand, offers incredible value to the customer, who no longer needs to write down a list and wander to the supermarket at the next opportunity to hunt up and down the aisles for everything that they’ll need. Having discovered a recipe from their favourite food blogger while taking a quick break from work, it takes just a few taps or clicks to arrange for the ingredients of this highly anticipated meal to arrive at the front door just in time to whip up dinner.

For FMCG brands, making items available for sale through a shoppable recipe is as good as having a customer right in front of the product in-store, at eye-level. Better! There’s no frustrating fight with the self-checkout machine required in order to complete the purchase. With heavy investment from brands and supermarkets into customer loyalty, leveraging shoppable recipes is a far better fit for the FMCG market.

Writing a new recipe for success

Media companies and marketing agencies are redefining advertising through technology, and the success of content marketing lies in the favourable relationship it creates with the consumer. Instead of manipulating the end-buyer with sex, flash and bright colours, brands which produce content are providers of value, gaining trust from the consumer before the first sale is ever made.

Amazon is already making forays into shoppable recipes through media partnerships, but it’s still anyone’s game. The coming era of shoppable recipes offers FMCG brands and supermarkets an opportunity to reach out to customers and more directly inform their experience.

The weekly grocery shop is a global institution, and this shows no signs of changing anytime soon. It is in finding a way onto those weekly shopping lists that the real revenue-generating value is to be found.

When customers start clicking a button to add an ingredient to their cart directly from a recipe, it will be up to the recipe creator, or the platform owner to decide which branded item ultimately ends up in the customer’s delivery basket. Instead of relying on the existing content creators to provide opportunities for advertisement, brands and retailers have the tools and technology to circumvent third-party recipe sites altogether and could redefine the game by speaking to customers themselves.