Search this site

Blog originally developed for Current Backyard You probably haven’t thought about physics and geometry since high school or college. But—it turns out—you have science to thank for the crispy crust, gooey cheese, tasty toppings, and everything you love about homemade pizza. By understanding the science behind pizza making, you’ll be able pick the best pizza oven for you. How Pizza Ovens Work The science of pizza making starts with heat. Heat is the transfer of energy from one object to another. There are three types of heat used in cooking: Conduction, Convection, and Radiation. Conduction: Heat moves by making direct contact with solids. It occurs when heat moves from the cooking surface to the dough. Convection: Heat moves through currents within liquids and gases. It takes place when hot air moves around the oven. Radiant Heat: Heat moves through electromagnetic waves. It occurs when the heat flowing through the oven radiates down. The heat being generated (physics) and the shape of the oven that distributes the heat (geometry) are each critical for making pizza – but they’re only one slice of the pie. High Heat Is Essential For Pizza Making How hot your pizza oven should be depends on the type of pizza you’re making. The soft, chewy, leopard spotted crust of a Neapolitan pizza demands cooking at temps of 800°F+ for less than two minutes, while the solid crunch and uniquely foldable NYC-style pie is cooked at 635°F for about six minutes. Whatever style you prefer, high heat is always necessary for making pizza (versus thawing frozen pizza or reheating leftover pizza). But when it comes to picking the best pizza oven, the name of the game is versatility. What To Look For When Picking a Pizza Oven There are multiple types of pizza ovens, but not all are created equal. Here’s what to expect from three types of pizza ovens. Regular Kitchen Oven A regular household kitchen oven has an important advantage: you probably already have one. But if you have ever tried to cook pizza in one, you’ll know that it’s better at making regular pies than pizza pies. Regular ovens tend to top out at 500°F, fine for cooking a roast or casserole for one hour; not so “hot” for cooking a pizza at 800°F in just over one minute. Cooking your pizza in a conventional oven also requires you to par-back just the crust first, then finish it with toppings after the initial bake, slowing down the process even more. Wood-Fired Pizza Nothing says “I love pizza” more than a wood-fired pizza oven. But you have to really love pizza, because of their drawbacks. A wood-fired pizza oven can crack 850°F, but it requires you to maintain a consistent heat all day and monitor your pizza carefully during the cooking process—an art that takes time to master. Plus, their footprint is massive, so it’s a tight-squeeze for most backyards and impossible for balconies. Even “small,” portable wood-fired pizza ovens take up a lot of space you may not have. Electric Pizza Oven The Current® Model P Electric Pizza Oven packs power, versatility, and performance in a single package. Unlike traditional ovens, electric pizza ovens reach up to 850°F for authentic, wood-fired-style pie, but do not take as long to heat as a wood-fire oven—or require as much physical space. The Model P is designed to fit on small patios, counter tops, and under most cabinets. Depending on which of the eight cooking modes you select, our electric pizza oven uses a combination of conductive (the stone) and radiant (graphite tubes) to deliver the perfect pie, whatever style you prefer. Plus, it cooks lots of delicious meals besides pizza, all while using significantly less energy than a traditional oven. Temperature Convenience Good For Regular Kitchen Oven No more than 500°F Built into existing kitchen Casseroles, roasts, desserts Wood-Fired Pizza Oven Up to 850°F Must constantly watch during heat-up and cooking process Traditional crispy crust pizza Current® Model P Electric Pizza Oven Up to 850°F in minutes Lightweight and portable for inside or outside use Eight modes for different pizzas, plus versatility for other meals Experience The Science of Superior Pizza Making The Current® Model P Electric Pizza Oven uses the science of physics and geometry to deliver the pizza you crave, with the convenience you appreciate. For a superior pie every time, add our electric pizza oven to your cooking lineup.

Blog originally developed for Current Backyard Smashburgers are as fun to make as they are to eat. But while there’s an art to making the perfect smashburger, the reason they taste so delicious is because of science. We’ll break down the science of the smashburger, so you can make the tastiest one ever on your outdoor electric griddle. The Reason We Love Smashburgers Culinary experts say the reason we love smashburgers is the rich and complex flavors that come from the Maillard reaction. What is the Maillard Reaction? Named after the French physician and chemist, Louis Camille Maillard, the Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction that occurs between the amino acids and the reducing sugars in meat that is heated above 280°F–330°F. There are three phases of the Maillard reaction: Initial: The colorless condensation of amino acids and sugars. Intermediate: The dehydration and rearrangement of chemical compounds in the food. Final: The formation of brown, nitrogenous polymers called melanoidins. The three-step process of the Maillard reaction creates hundreds of tasty new compounds, resulting in the browned crust and complex, savory flavors in favorites like seared ribeye, crispy bacon, and of course, smashburgers. Griddles vs. Grates for Smashburgers The Maillard reaction behaves differently on cold-rolled steel on electric griddles versus the open grates on grills. The difference mostly comes down to coverage: Griddles: Flat, solid surface provides complete contact with the meat, ideal for searing as the entire surface browns at once. Grills: Grates offer more localized browning, as the Maillard reaction only occurs on the meat touching the metal, creating “grill marks.” So, if you crave char-broiled flavor and classic looks of grills marks, go with grilling. But if you savor the unique flavor of searing, griddles are the way to go. There's a lot to consider when cooking outside, so check out our ultimate how-to on griddling, grilling, and even pizza making: Outdoor Cooking Guide. The Model G Excels At Searing Smashburgers The Model G Electric Griddle combines the rapid heating and precise temperature control for searing the perfect smashburger. Unlike gas grills, which may commonly be used for smashburgers, our electric griddle heats faster and stays hot longer, maintaining high temps up to 600°F. Plus, its wide surface area lets you make multiple smashburgers at once, or cook meat, veggies, and buns at the same time. Get The Most From Your Griddle Proper maintenance is key to making smashburgers for years to come, so see how to clean and care for an electric griddle. Up Your Griddle Game While the Model G Griddle is your most important tool, you can turn your electric griddle into a smashburger-making machine with the five electric griddle accessories that you actually need. Add More Fun and Flavor To Your Smashburgers When it comes to smashburger toppings, there’s nothing wrong with traditional cheese, mustard, pickle, and onion. However, for even more fun and flavor, you must try Mushroom Swiss Smashburgers and Pimento Cheese Smashburgers. Of course, there’s a whole lot more you can make besides smashburgers, so check out these easy weeknight dinners on an electric griddle. Make Your Greatest Burger Yet The science of smashburgers is complex, but their popularity is simple; they’re fun to make and enjoy. With the Model G Griddle, included in our all-in-one Griddle Essentials Bundle, you’ll not only make mouthwatering smashburgers – you’ll have a blast cooking them too.

Blog post originally developed for Current Backyard Picture this: you bite into a tasty pizza or a savory steak. Tastes like a work of art, doesn’t it? And it is, but you actually have science to thank for the high heat that makes it possible. Specifically, the physics of insulation. Let’s see how the physics of insulation works in outdoor electric appliances like the Model G+ Dual Zone Electric Grill and Model P Smart Pizza Oven. How Does Heat Work? Let’s start with the most important part of cooking: heat. What started with cooking food over an open flame thousands of years ago has evolved into the state-of-the-art electric grills, griddles, and pizza ovens we engineer today. But the principle behind cooking is the same: heat transfer. Heat Transfer Heat is the transfer (or movement) of thermal energy between substances due to a difference in their temperatures. Heat transfers three ways: Conduction: Heat moves by making direct contact with solids, e.g. grill grates Convection: Heat moves through liquids and gases, e.g. convection ovens Radiation: Heat moves through electromagnetic waves, such as microwaves How Heats Works in Our Electric Grills and Pizza Ovens Both the Model G+ electric grill and the Model P pizza oven use a combination of conductive and radiant heating. The Model G+ primarily relies on radiant heat, but uses some conduction to heat the peaks of the grates The Model P uses conduction to heat the stone and radiant heat through graphite tubes, with the percentage from each depending on the selected cooking mode Our electric grill reaches temps up to 700°F, while our pizza oven hits 850°F, all with more precision and less setup than open-flame cooking found in traditional gas or charcoal grills. You can take a deeper dive on this topic in Electric Grilling: The Ultimate Guide. But why doesn’t the heat ever leave or escape from our electric appliances? The reason is insulation. TL; DR: Heat transfer occurs through conduction, convection, or radiation. Current® electric outdoor appliances use a combination of conductive and radiant heat, depending on the appliance and cooking mode. What Is Insulation and How Does It Work? The principles behind insulation are simple: insulation keeps heat in and cold air out. Whether it’s fiberglass in your attic, or the materials found in our electric grills and pizza ovens, insulation essentially acts as a barrier that prevents heat from transferring inside to outside. Benefits of Insulation for Electric Grilling When it comes to electric grilling, insulation improves performance and cooking results by maintaining a consistent, high-temperature cooking environment. Insulation also improves energy efficiency and accelerates cooking times because the electric appliances don’t have to generate more energy to “replace” the lost heat. What We Use For Insulation In Our Electric Grills We use different materials based on the outdoor electric appliance. The Model G+ uses a double/multi-wall insulation The Model P uses double/multi-wall insulation, as well as fiberglass insulation These high-quality and durable materials allow our electric appliances to reach and maintain the high temperatures needed for everything from searing steaks to cooking pizzas. Our insulation, when paired with our dynamic flavor technology and energy-efficient design, is why our electric appliances are able to hit high temps, even when the weather outside is sub-zero. TL; DR: Insulation acts as a barrier to keep heat in and cold out. Current® electric appliances use high-quality materials as insulation, ensuring temperature stability in any outdoor environment. Master The Art & Science of Electric Grilling Thanks to the physics of insulation, you can enjoy the benefits of temperature stability, energy efficiency, and consistent results from the Model G+ electric grill and Model P pizza oven. But mastering your electric outdoor appliances is as much as art as it is as science. So now that you know how it works, discover what you can do by checking out our healthy electric grill recipes.

Blog post developed for Current Backyard Are you an outdoor grilling enthusiast with a lot of passion but not a lot of space? You don’t have to abandon your ambitions; you just have to be smart about your setup. The best place to begin is with the tried-and-true: The “Golden Triangle” workflow. This proven method makes the most use of a small space to perfect your Outdoor Cooking setup. Here’s how it works. What is The “Golden Triangle” Workflow? The “Golden Triangle” workflow is a classic, simple design principle that uses basic geometry to promote natural movement and flow. Basically, it involves arranging the three main components in any space (kitchen, living room, bedroom, deck) into a triangle. There are only two rules to the “Golden Triangle.” Rule #1: Each item should be between four and nine feet apart. Rule #2: The sum of all three sides of the triangle should be between 13 and 26 feet. The “Golden Triangle” is usually applied to placing items in the kitchen (refrigerator, sink, stove) or the living room (couch, coffee table, TV), but it can also be used to figure out where to put your outdoor electric grill. Applying the “Golden Triangle” To Your Patio Setup Your outdoor electric grill should be the centerpiece of your outdoor setup and be easily accessible at all times. So, start with your Model G2 Electric Grill and think about what else you want on your balcony or patio. Want a spot to sit and relax? What about additional counter/storage space for essential grilling accessories? Place your electric grill, seating, and extra countertop storage in a triangular orientation, with each item being no more than nine-feet apart. Or maybe you want to include the Model P Electric Pizza Oven for the ultimate grill and pizza night? Just make sure your grill, pizza oven, and third item (seating or counter space) form a triangle. Benefits of the “Golden Triangle” The “Golden Triangle” makes for a faster, easier, more functional and efficient workflow, especially if you’re tight on space. You’ll see the difference immediately, even if you’re grilling more simple items, like burgers, hot dogs, or steaks. But the “Golden Triangle” design principle really shines when you take on more ambitious meals, like Grilled Duck Breast or Sirloin Kebabs, where space and efficiency are essential. Put simply, you want grilling outside to be a low-key, relaxing experience where everything is well organized. The “Golden Triangle” makes it possible, even in a small space. Go For The Gold Standard With The Model G2 Electric Grill The “Golden Triangle” improves your outdoor cooking workflow, while the Model G2 Grill improves your outdoor cooking, period. So, while you’re saving space with the “Golden Triangle” method, save money by shopping our bundles or building your own.

Case study developed for LogicMonitor Challenge A team at Peach focused on media owner solutions including CARIA®, ARPP.TV, Attribution, and CopyCentral in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France, automates and optimizes communications between different parties in the advertising workflow – from buying TV and online video, to managing campaign schedules and rotation instructions, to analyzing and harmonizing viewership data. Peach’s mission is to simplify through automation and provide an ecosystem for all parties to connect and do business together, better. However, the modern advertising landscape has gotten more complex, making Peach’s mission more difficult. “I think the industry as a whole suffers from a lot of fragmentation, especially in video advertising,” said Al Hepworth, Senior Director of Engineering, Peach. “There are a lot of different platforms, and they are connected and managed in different ways.” Peach needed an enterprise IT platform that provided automation and optimization to handle the complexity, as well as full-stack observability over their entire multinational operation. Solution Peach’s previous platform was an open-source system that was difficult to configure and set up, which only added to the complexity. Peach also had to manually maintain, upgrade, and update a mission-critical piece of their operations constantly, a time-consuming and risky process. Peach needed a better solution. After an extensive evaluation process, they found LogicMonitor. Benefits “Let’s put it this way,” said Al simply. “LogicMonitor’s fantastic user experience and extensive feature set are far superior to other monitoring solutions on the market.” LogicMonitor gave Peach the full-stack observability they needed, enabling them to visualize and monitor their entire infrastructure in all of its complexity and broadness. “LogicMonitor isn’t just keeping an eye on our infrastructure,” explained Al. Peach has extended LogicMonitor’s capabilities by using scripts that examine all-important operational characteristics of its environments, including detecting abnormal data situations within the databases and repositories. “From a technical perspective, what I appreciate is the ability to use the API in LogicMonitor,” says Ilias Oko-Osi, Senior DevOps Specialist, Peach. “It allows us to scale our deployments quite easily, and also create data sources that can get information from a wide variety of places.” “We are passionate about automation and infrastructure as code,” added Al. “The API enables us to create monitors as part of the development of non-functional stories to give us the necessary quantitative understanding of whether these previously hard to visualize features have been delivered successfully. We call this MDD or monitor-driven development.” While LogicMonitor has extended Peach’s capabilities, all of their team members don’t have to be highly experienced to use it. There is a multi-stage training program to bring people up to speed. This frees up resources, allowing more experienced engineers to work on other more high-priority tasks. “It’s not just the tech teams that are looking at LogicMonitor, it’s also our support teams,” noted Jack Stewart, Junior Software Engineer, Peach. “It’s quite easy for all roles to understand what is going on. The support teams don’t need to fully understand the technical aspects, but they’re able to report the information back to their clients.” As a multinational media services company, Peach gets an enormous amount of inputs and data every second of every day. With LogicMonitor, they are able to separate signal from noise and do it quickly. “It can be very complex and confusing to deal with an alert storm. You need to be able to tune out less important alerts quickly and easily so you can focus on those that are business-critical,” explained Jack. “LogicMonitor allows you to do that easily through the different alerting mechanisms and the management subsystem. It’s very comprehensive.” LogicMonitor handles Peach’s monitoring requirements, enhances their data sourcing and deployments through the API, separates signal from noise in seconds, and empowers employees at all levels to do their best work by focusing on the most relevant work. Additionally, LogicMonitor also saves Peach time for more important work. “Just by using LogicMonitor we save about three hours of maintenance and scheduled upgrades per week,” said Jack. “We don’t have to double-check all of our systems and carry out individual reviews. We don’t have to do all of the manual work that LogicMonitor offers.” Peach no longer spends time on manual maintenance and scheduled upgrades. Instead, it takes advantage of LogicMonitor’s full-stack observability to visualize and simplify its complex operations and grow its organization. “We’ve got a set of dashboards that are very focused on specific products and show us everything we need to know, they are our eyes and ears.” said Al. “What are the key metrics? What do we need to see? At what levels should alerts trigger? Where should the alerts be routed? And how do we bring it all together into a neat dashboard? That’s what LogicMonitor has given us the power to do.”

Case study developed for LogicMonitor Challenge Headquartered in Stäfa, Switzerland, Sensirion is the leading manufacturer of high-quality sensors and sensor solutions for the measurement and control of humidity and gas and liquid flows. Founded in 1998, Sensirion serves customers in the United States, South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Netherlands, and Germany. Sensirion’s challenges should be familiar to many: The rapid speed of digitalization and the need to monitor information from multiple different sources. “Our biggest problem was unifying,” recalls Andi Kuehne, Head Global IT Infrastructure Services, Sensirion. But with customers around the globe across multiple different time zones and infrastructure across multiple sites, unifying Sensirion’s monitoring capabilities was no easy feat. Coupled with the challenges of upgrading a static legacy product with no auto-discovery and dependency recognition capabilities, Sensirion needed an enterprise IT platform that could help solve these problems with automation and built-in logic. Solution Given the scale of Sensirion’s operations and the scope of their needs, Kuehne and his team began an extensive search process. During the search for a new monitoring solution, Sensirion had issues with one platform because it was too static, lacked templates, and wasn’t robust enough to highlight what they needed to monitor. Another potential platform was a little bit better, but it was manual to manage. Sensirion needed a solution with automated monitoring and upgrades. While the first two options evaluated were too simple, a third was too complex and cumbersome. “I would have had to hire two people full time just to manage it,” said Kuehne. Sensirion needed automation, not just simplicity, and they also needed complete coverage without complexity. LogicMonitor offered all of the above and much more. Benefits Sensirion saw many of LogicMonitor’s benefits immediately upon installation. Most notably, Sensirion went from using eight monitoring tools to just one, dramatically freeing up resources, consolidating core functions, and simplifying operations. “If there was a problem, it was time-consuming to find a solution,” remembered Kuehne. “We had to manage multiple tools and in turn look at the timestamps in each tool.” Another major challenge LogicMonitor solved was preventing outages. With Sensirion’s previous monitoring solution, there was no intelligence behind the alerting, no root cause analysis, and no alert suppression. LogicMonitor fixed all that, enhancing the overall availability of the infrastructure dramatically, preventing dozens of hours of troubleshooting time. Time is money, and by effectively eliminating outages and troubleshooting, LogicMonitor helped Sensirion save more of both. “LogicMonitor lets us really dig into the problem and shows us the root cause,” says Kuehne. “Since having LogicMonitor in place we haven’t suffered a major outage because we are able to prevent them up-front.” With LogicMonitor, Sensirion increases availability by gaining key insights into the infrastructure. While their previous platform involved a lot of troubleshooting, LogicMonitor allows for problem prevention. “We have a single pane of glass view of everything, so we don’t have to go looking across eight monitoring platforms for the problem after it has already happened,” says Kuehne. “We can prevent it before it does.” This isn’t a passive, observational process either. LogicMonitor automates problem-solving, so Sensirion doesn’t have to go looking for issues. Both LogicMonitor’s auto-discovery system and automated monitoring capabilities have caught numerous issues, such as misconfiguration of devices. “We didn’t know we had a lot of these problems until LogicMonitor was able to identify them,” said Kuehne. The result? Much less unplanned downtime. For an international company with around-the-clock services like Sensirion, that’s huge. But Sensirion isn’t just preventing problems with LogicMonitor; they’re discovering new opportunities. Kuehne says connecting to the cloud “is a breeze” with LogicMonitor, allowing for faster technology onboarding. Sensirion also managed to onboard several other departments to LogicMonitor. Yield engineers can now monitor their systems and focus on maximizing sensor outputs using LogicMonitor. Meanwhile, Sensirion’s software group can access the platform and even enhance certain functionality with their own scripts. Thanks to LogicMonitor, Sensirion is not only focused on the status quo; they’re able to grow. “We’ll certainly grow with our cloud infrastructure,” said Kuehne. “It’ll now be easier to roll out certain applications on a global scale, so we’re moving our applications to the cloud.” Sensirion came to LogicMonitor with big demands. LogicMonitor didn’t just meet them — they expanded Sensirion’s views of what’s possible.

Brand blog developed for Instacart Keeping shelves stocked and customers happy has always been challenging for grocers. Today, these retailers face new challenges that require new approaches. Before the pandemic, grocery was slow to adopt e-commerce and lagged when compared to other retail sectors. But — as we know — COVID-19 changed that. With the rise of e-commerce, customers demand the same order and delivery experiences from their grocers as they do from online retailers. Meeting this demand requires grocers to invest in technology, labor, and inventory at a time when all three have never been more precarious and volatile. There’s no “back to normal” – this is the new normal People will always need groceries; it’s how they get their groceries that will continue to evolve. Grocers are tasked with providing groceries in the new ways customers want — in-store, quick and scheduled delivery, curbside pickup or some hybrid of them all. We want to enable any retailer, large or small, to drive success both online and in-store and serve their customers better in all of the ways they choose to shop. Instacart was founded in 2012 to bring the grocery industry online and help make grocery shopping effortless. We started by understanding what consumers want and then built enterprise-grade technology that allows retailers to meet those needs. Retailers reach customers through both the Instacart App, where customers can shop from their favorite retailers through our app or website, and retailers’ owned and operated online storefronts that are powered by Instacart Platform, our end-to-end technology solution encompassing e-commerce, fulfillment, in-store, ads, and insights, which we announced earlier this year. Today, Instacart facilitates online shopping, delivery, and pickup services across more than 70,000 stores in 5,500+ cities in North America. Thanks to our partnerships with more than 800 national, regional, and local retail brands, millions of people trust us to help them get the groceries they need from the retailers they love. The Instacart App gives us critical insights into customer behaviors and preferences, and enables us to develop powerful features to adapt to their demands. Over the last 18 months, we’ve tested, retested, and optimized App features, and modularized them to enhance retailer’s e-commerce experiences built with and powered by the Instacart Platform. This wasn’t a one-and-done activity; it’s an ongoing, adaptive process we call the OneX initiatives. Expanding the possibilities of grocery with best practices from our app and retailers’ expertise The OneX initiatives take the best of our thousands of experiments, developments, and learnings on the Instacart App to power a platform of microservices that enable retailers to access the best of Instacart. As we continue to learn and gather more data from the Instacart App, our OneX features continue to be refined and improved. So what does this mean for our retailers? It means grocers can now offer market-leading innovation on their own branded storefronts via our Storefront Pro solution. Two powerful Instacart Platform OneX innovations now offered through Storefront Pro: OneCart and OneSearch. Improving the possibilities of the post-checkout experience OneCart will help retailers drive top-line sales growth and customer retention with an optimized post-checkout experience. Features include: Smart replacements & post-checkout upsells: Customers get what they need with personal recommendations for replacements and “Did You Forget?” prompts. Dynamic order status: Customers know exactly when their orders are delivered and picked up with real-time status updates. Live chat: Customers may review changes and chat live with their shopper once shopping begins up until the last minute. OneCart has a proven history of delivering value to our partners, delivering performance improvements across several key KPIs. Expanding the scope of search OneSearch delivers an updated search infrastructure using machine-learning techniques to handle low and null results and present personalized results. With OneSearch, retailers have the opportunity to increase search conversion by up to 10%, through a set of features that includes: Automated and personalized search proactively understands customer intent and shows relevant search suggestions based on the user’s past searches and purchases. Improved search ranking logic with merchandising controls boosts high-conversion items higher in search ranking, along with controls to support unique merchandising needs. Machine-learning replaces manual management and intervention for optimizing search result pages to handle low and null search results. With OneSearch, Instacart’s machine learning parses through more than 50 million searches a week. This volume allows us to train our machine-learning models to understand customer behavior across geographies, retailers, and price points. We then take these learnings and incorporate them into a powerful search experience for retailers using Storefront Pro via the Instacart Platform. This empowers retailers to leverage market-leading search which is based on the massive learnings across the scope of the app to their own branded storefronts and extend that capability uniquely for their storefront experience. Innovation never stops, neither do we Instacart Platform is always evolving, developing new technology and innovations that can help our partners take the lead now and into the future. Our commitment to innovation is powered by our heart for service. At the core of everything we do is our dedication to retailer omnichannel growth. Powering that growth are the solutions that Instacart Platform brings to retailers. We deliver the advantage of abundance. With high-quantity and high-quality transactions and accumulated data, Instacart is a high-scale testing ground for improving features and algorithms. This gives us deep insights into what’s working and what can be improved. Times always change, and we change with them and prepare our partners to do the same. Experience how we leverage best-practices from our Instacart App to power best-in-class retail solutions for our partners. Discover our full suite of retail solutions.

Brand blog developed for Instacart Today’s retail market is facing massive disruption. Grocers who provided delivery services in response to the pandemic lockdowns now find that consumers continue to appreciate, and expect, the same ease, convenience, and speed of these services in a post-pandemic world. Due to the rise of e-commerce across other industries, consumers don’t just want their groceries delivered — they want them delivered fast, with 85% of consumers expecting their groceries delivered in two hours or less. Led by consumer behavior, expectations, and demand, grocery retail is changing, bringing with it new challenges. These challenges affect how retailers price products, market ads, fulfill labor requirements, provide rapid delivery, and enhance the customer experience through acceptable substitutions. “The new normal” is now for grocers Grocers shouldn’t expect a “return to normal.” Online grocery shopping is the new normal — and is only going to grow. Over the past two years, grocery spend has shifted from offline to online at an accelerated pace. In 2019, only 3% of U.S. grocery shopping took place online, and in just two years online grocery tripled to nearly 10% in 2021. Online grocery penetration is expected to double to reach 20.5% by 2026 and could reach up to 35% in the next 5 years. Retailers run the risk of playing catch up with consumer demands, and falling behind competitors, as they struggle to find solutions at scale that solve for both fulfillment and growth. Connect with consumers to thrive, not just survive Being competitive is a baseline requirement to thrive in this new environment. That’s why at Instacart, we’re not just helping our retail partners compete. We’re helping them unlock new opportunities to connect with consumers and grow. To rapidly adapt to changing market dynamics and consumer expectations — now and in the near future — retailers have adopted Instacart’s full-suite of fulfillment solutions. Some of Instacart’s most innovative fulfillment solutions are delivered with Carrot Connect — a growing set of APIs that extend our technology to grocers’ white-label sites as part of the Instacart Platform — and retailer partners are seeing growth. Retailers powering their fulfillment operations with Carrot Connect find that it accelerates their ability to deliver the experiences customers demand, while providing a branded, white-label solution that complements retailers’ existing brands and environments. Driving growth for grocers and retailers Carrot Connect has driven a 47% sales lift on Instacart over a fifteen-month period for one large grocery partner, with a $115 average basket size for this partner over the last 15 months. Non-grocers who have adopted Carrot Connect have seen sales increases too. A non-grocer retailer that adopted Carrot Connect achieved 25% lift in sales on Instacart over the same fifteen-month period. These results show Carrot Connect drives growth and core KPIs by improving service, performance, and efficiency. Also noteworthy, Carrot Connect’s white-label service keeps the retailer’s branding front and center in all customer-facing interactions, giving the customer a consistently excellent experience on the front end. Carrot Connect accelerates the time to bring services online, with a set of API-based services, including fulfillment, loyalty program integration, replacements, search, personalization, and ads. These services are available as part of Instacart’s white-label storefront and as affordable, à la carte products that can be integrated into the retailer’s existing system. Contact us to learn how Instacart’s suite of fulfillment solutions can help achieve your omnichannel growth objectives.