1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Elly Truesdell of Almanac Insights (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You come from the traditional retail background. How does e-commerce play into this? What are the trends? How are you playing into those trends?

Elly Truesdell: We try to stay very aware of food being such a traditional system. There is an operational piece that’s still somewhat old school and traditional. There is some real need and attention being paid to where we can modernize this and can put tech behind better distribution, better logistics to get people food faster, safer, and fresher.

One thing that jumped out from that is access and newer channels of distribution. As I was leaving Whole Foods, there was a major evolution in terms of where people were buying and consuming food.

Certainly in America, you can buy food easily in your office space, in airports, in public spaces. We recognize those modes of distribution. For so long, it has been vending machines. Now there is a system and a set of infrastructure being built out to provide fresher and better access to foods.

Sramana Mitra: Give me an example from your portfolio where you’ve seen really interesting use of technology to build a brand

Elly Truesdell: I immediately thought of Sweetgreen, which is an amazing salad concept. They would almost describe themselves as a technology company. I don’t think that’s quite accurate. They are a phenomenal and highly-sophisticated fresh and prepared foods company that utilizes technology to propel their business model forward in a way that has really been remarkable.

They have outposts all over New York City and other cities across the country where you’re able to order and have that salad ready for pick up at a certain time. They’ve done great work through the development of their own app. They have never relied on UberEats or DoorDash. That is up for discussion at this point. They’ve been very progressive and forward-thinking. 

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting because this is a conversation that is happening in the e-commerce world extensively right now. Brands are trying to figure out how much money they spend on acquiring customers for their website versus going through Amazon.

You’re addressing the issue from the point of view of restaurants and food. It’d be interesting to see what you find after there’s more data. In a while, there’s going to be more data. That’s going to be interesting.

Elly Truesdell: I’m going to be really curious how much this propels the willingness of people to order their food directly. There has been less of that exponential curve. There will be a lot of interesting shifts. We’re watching our own businesses and portfolio.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday on this point with a young woman. She’s young and has a fledgling business that has a variety of gluten-free and allergen-free cookies, truffles, and brownies.

She was all set ready to go launching with the key retailers and was trying to make a decision whether to move forward with that channel strategy. We both just said, “It doesn’t feel the time to be doing that.”

Sramana Mitra: One trend that is most likely to last even after we settle down from this nightmare is people will probably not want to go into crowded spaces a lot. We have hit an inflection point where people won’t want to be in crowds as much. Online ordering and delivery of foods may very well be a much more prevalent going forward.

I’ve always loved going to the grocery store and looking at the produce, but that is going to be balanced by people’s desire to not be in crowded spaces.

Elly Truesdell: You wonder then if technology can play a role to be doing that. I have always wanted a better option when I don’t feel like I don’t have the time for grocery shopping.

This segment is part 3 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Elly Truesdell of Almanac Insights
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