What Does The Walmart/Tasty Partnership Mean For The Shoppable Recipes Space?

Shoppable recipes aren't new. For several years now, grocery retailers, CPG brands and recipe websites have offered shoppable recipes to consumers as a way of streamlining the meal planning and grocery shopping process. Companies such as Whisk, ChannelSight, Chicory and Northfork work with brands to make recipe content shoppable. Since we're a trusted source of recipe content for grocery retailers, CPGs and more, we monitor shoppable recipes news closely. 2019 has been a busy year for shoppable recipes, with announcements from Innit, ShopRite and most recently, Walmart and Tasty. We're just about ready to declare 2019 the year of the shoppable recipe. No announcement has created as much buzz, however (pun intended!) as the extension of Tasty and Walmart's partnership to include shoppable recipes. The reaction to this Northfork-powered announcement was overwhelmingly positive, illustrating that consumers understand the benefits of shoppable recipes.

The real benefit of this announcement from Walmart and Tasty is that it has the potential to disrupt and expand the shoppable recipes space. There are a couple of reasons for this.

It introduces shoppable recipes to a mainstream audience

While online reaction to Walmart and Tasty's partnership was positive, one thing stood out: many were hearing about shoppable recipes for the first time. This might seem like bad news for veterans of the shoppable recipes space. Why did Amazon's shoppable recipes partnership with Serious Eats, for example, not create a similar buzz amongst consumers? Regardless, increasing awareness of shoppable recipes amongst Tasty's staggering audience can only be a good thing for other retailers hoping to leverage the power of this engaging feature. Comments on Tasty's social media announcement of the deal illustrate that consumers are interested in shoppable recipes, but would like to see it extended to other retailers. Savvy retailers hoping to compete should be jumping on the opportunity to remind consumers that their recipes are also shoppable while the idea is fresh in their minds.

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It pushes others to embrace shoppable recipes

When Amazon acquired Whole Foods, they were predicted to disrupt the brick and mortar grocery space. While 'disrupt' probably overstates what Amazon has achieved, other grocery retailers have certainly responded by increasing investment in technology and strategies such as curbside pick-up. Similarly, Tasty's debut in the shoppable recipes space should encourage competitors to go all-in on the feature. That's not to say that Tasty are alone in making their recipe content shoppable. BBC Good Food, Allrecipes and Yummly are just some of the recipe websites that have already made the move to shoppable content. With endless recipes sites and millions of recipes available online though, making your recipes shoppable seems like an obvious next step if you want to compete, whether you're in a mature online grocery market such as the UK or a rapidly maturing marketing such as the US.

The benefits of shoppable recipes are clear. They aid with meal planning, streamline the recipe inspiration and grocery shopping process, increase basket value and foster loyalty. They provide retailers with a fresh way to engage with consumers, give consumers a new reason to visit recipe websites and enable CPG brands to take control of customer data by implementing a direct-to-consumer model. Walmart's move to make Tasty recipes shoppable marks a turning point in shoppable recipes and online grocery. This is a real test for shoppable recipes and we'll be monitoring it closely to discover how competitors and consumers respond.

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