You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Hey, so a story popped in on my radar while reading in for our next guest. It was from Industry Dive. They're a business to business news organization. They wrote, as grocers dial up their efforts to reduce food waste, a key area of focus within sustainability, artificial intelligence and other digital innovations are helping food retailers improve their data processes and workforce efficiencies. So I'm curious what our next guest has to say about that, and so delighted to have
back with them. Earlier this year, he was named one of Canada's most Influential change makers by the Globe and Mails Report on Business magazine. Josh Domingis founded flash Food, the digital marketplace that connects consumers to heavily discounted food. I always feel like I was thinking about you again?
Is that? Why the heck? Where weren't doing this sooner? Anyway? Welcome back, Welcome back, And Jess was reminded like this the first time we had she was here. She's in for Tim, but like, nice to have this continuity.
How are you, I'm doing well.
I mean, congratulations, you have a bigger family now.
Yeah, thank you. We had another one, so our newness is now three months old. And I was joking that, like I go from all things crazy at home to all things crazy at work, but just on a journey, and it's so grateful to be in the position that we're at. We're really excited with what's happening stateside, Like.
Well, tell us about the journey and what's happened since April A lot. I mean, you said to me, how's the world going.
I'm like, it's crazy, it's nice job. It has just been so busy.
Even with questions about the outlook and all these problems, there's growth, people are doing things.
What's changed since April A lot of things, But.
I'll say the first thing is like the reliance on from shoppers on flash Foot Now, like we've become a lifeline for some of our customers. Some of our shoppers where like they're not feeding their kids or their families as affordably as they would read or as healthily without the app. And we're seeing that just play out in
more and more communities. And there was a story I was telling est our director of Commons before we stat in here, and me and my president stopped at a store in the Midwest last week and we went to the store. It was one of our newer stores that we had partnered with and still in like kind of the pilot phase, and so we weren't going to go in and like talk to anybody. We weren't planning on doing that. Really, we were just going to kind of see how people were doing in the store. We ended
up meeting the assistant store manager. She's like, you need to go talk to the store manager. He pulled in the meat department manager who was the one running flash food at the store, and he just pulls us society. He's like, I've reduced the amount of food that I'm throwing out like a ridiculous amount. And then he called over the seafood manager who was just like walking by and he stopped and he's like, I just want to say thank you, Like what you're allowing us to do
is so impactful. And we left that meeting. We were going to another dinner with a couple of other executives at Admire in the Midwest, and the store that we left and I was talking to my president and I'm just like, this is not like it's not like a surprise factor. It's not like a reinvigoration. It's more like confirmatory.
To me, it just is so obvious that this is going to continue to happen and the scale is going to keep happening, and we're going to be in every community in America, like it's just a matter of time. So it's balancing that with I guess the headwinds that are the grocery sector, that are the food sector that.
Like and I want to give you that, but give me, give me we are bloomberg, So we get a little like number crazy, but give me an.
Idea in terms of like we'll go ahead, good, Well.
The size and scoop that he threw out the last time he was here, he was talking about how it's about five to ten thousand dollars of food every day of stores throwing out and that really stuck out to me.
Yeah, we've now saved shoppers. So one number that comes to mind is like, we've now saved shoppers over two hundred million dollars in their groceries, like and and we're in just under two thousand stores. There's so what does that mean.
So when somebody shop, tell me what that number means.
The average the average discount on flash food is about fifty percent off. Okay, So, like we've saved shoppers in total across the entire platform over two hundred million dollars now and then like we're in nineteen hundred stores. There's forty or fifty thousand grocery stores in America, Like we're still just scratching the surface. There's still so much opportunity.
Who's shopping? Who is your shopper.
It's funny I was talking about this earlier, Like there's a small cohort of people that don't have to ever think about how much their grocery, their groceries are, And there's a.
Cohort increasingly, not because I feel like.
To be fair, To be fair, there's people who are sat on.
It's a very small number and it's getting smaller. And there's a small number of people who just like are on the other spectrum, and our shoppers are the mass market that's in between. Like, it's not just people who need to save money on their groceries. People need to save money anywhere now, So in terms of the shopper, it's typically young moms that are our main shopper. But it runs the gamut, like across the spectrum economically.
How does it work exactly?
If you go to the store, remind.
Everybody because I know you went through this last time.
But yeah, so you usually check the app, so I'll talk the flow. You check the app in the morning, you see what a store posts, you buy it. So let's say you buy a pack of chicken rest and it's fifty percent off. Anytime that day, you go to the store and you go to the flash Food zone, which is by the customer service desk usually, and they have a device with the list of names of people that are coming to pick up. You just say I'm Jess,
I bought this chicken through flash Food. They click your name, click confirm, pick up, grab your item for you, give it to you, and you're done. So the transaction happens in the app, and that way you know that your food's going to be waiting for you there anytime in the day. We actually have stories of people who will like buy from multiple stores and they'll send their father in law, their mother in law, whoever's coming home from work that day, like, hey, stop at the store. You
got to grab my order. That's actually becoming more of the thing as we add more locations.
Are they restrictions on how much you can buy?
No?
No, do you typically sell out?
It's the purple fridge.
Right, Yeah, we're selling like depending on the store, but we're selling seventy five to eighty percent of all the food that makes its way on the flash food platform. Some of the markets, some of the stores as we like, have been on for a while, more shoppers know about them when we launched. There's some like education to let
shoppers know. For example, like from the last time I was here, we went from I think it was like ten or fifteen stores with Stopping Shop to now over three hundred stores live with them across New England, New Jersey, New York. So Stopping Shop is our biggest expansion in the last quarter that we've had.
So in context as far as if something is two to three days before the expiration date is due or even weak out, what causes that to happen? Are people just going in not if it's stays suitor. Are they not wanting to grab that and they're trying to buy something that's going to last a little bit longer? So that's why stores end up having to throw this out.
That's exactly it. It's consumer habits, specifically in North America, when we go grocery shopping, we're always reaching at the back for whatever has long. Yeah, we're all guilty of it, and the near dated stuff moves to the front, and we.
Think that there's not quite as many items left. I'm kind of questioning why things might be there.
That's exactly the next point. If you go buy a watermelon and there's one on the shelf, consumer so the worst one. So the retailer has to stop the shelves. So it's a combination so that we get selection. It's a combination of like inventory getting into the store, but also consumer habits that drives to this like dual sided problem.
I guess as someone who's created this business, Josh, do you think about, like you know so much when we talk about retail or some other markets. You know, managing your supply chain is crucial, right, And I do wonder do you think that there is a moment in time where food or supermarkets are better at managing their food purchases so that there isn't waste that you can't tap into or is it not.
It's not the way this market works.
I mean, I mean, I'm just curious if you yeah, it's not. It's not serving to the business. But I mean, I would love if that were the case. From personally, from like an environmental perspective, I would love if that were the case.
But is there something about it that almost makes it impossible.
It's it's not ever going to get there. It's so hard to manage inventory and fresh food. Like we're in New York City and you can get a banana at any time of the year. Like people forget how just much of a miracle that is, Like you're not they're not growing down the road. You got to get that across the world basically, and take that for any item
like and avocado, the same thing. So as long as our habits are as they are, which they will continue to be, it's basically impossible to be perfect on your inventory.
Isn't that funny? Like I think about growing up, I'm older than both of you, but it's.
Like peaches were in season, like this was in season corn in you know, like there was just certain things that we would have and it was kind of fun.
But it's not that way anymore, it's.
Gone away very different, and now if they don't have something at one store, your competitor has it down the road. So like, because of that reason, in addition to supply chain, addition to moving food, and in addition to every time you touch food like it degrades its quality a little bit, it's just really really difficult to get fresh food right forecasting. So my belief is, no matter what, we're gonna have a surplus in North America food at the grocery stores.
I think it's going to reduce over time, but I think it's always going to be there. And I say that having friendships close ties with some of these companies that are doing what you're saying, like using AI and leveraging the best way you can order, the best way you like, you can adopt your systems to being perfect.
Yeah, exactly, Sit tight. Sure, we want to talk more. Awesome, I want to pick your brain more.
Josh Domingus is going to stay with us. He's founder and CEO of Flash Food. Fascinating story, and I feel like Jessice fits into. We were talking with Eric Shatsker about the Bloomberg Catalyst. Yes, the New Economy Catalyst. I mean, these are people who are doing this, like thinking about food and food production.
And also climate goes into that as well.
Absolutely, So we're going to continue this conversation just a moment. I want to get right back to Josh Tamingus, founder and CEO of Flash Food, still here with us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. As you know that they are a digital marketplace. They bring together consumers or connect consumers to heavily discounted food that is nearing its.
Best before date. Fascinating to hear what you are doing. One thing I have a question with you with you is where's the Whole.
Foods, Walmart, the Costco, the kroger the Wegmans, the Albertson's, the all d to partner with you? What's what's the conversations you're having?
Yeah, I'm assuming you are.
Yeah. Yeah, And if anybody knows any of them, like give them a call. No, we're speaking to uh, We're speaking to basically everybody in America.
Do they want to do it?
Yes? And you have different levels within these big companies, decision making from different people. It depends who you get in through with some of the like we are what I'll say is we're very focused on being national in America and that is something that we continuously are focusing on. And then with some of those companies, like I think it's a matter of time, Like I just for whatever reason.
Bring them revenue, you potentially bring them new customers.
We will absolutely drive in new shoppers that I'll spend more money in their stores, will help produce the waistline, drive in like a contract of their waistline. So it's just found money in a lot of ways. But the challenge with big companies, and this is not just grocery, is you have a strategic priority list. What do you pull out to put something new in front of and who's owning it, who in the organization, who's allowed a speaker,
who has the most like opportunity to do it? And that is the hard part of selling anything into a massive company. It's not whether somebody wants to do a thing or not, because a lot of folks and a lot of companies are excited about new ideas. It's really like, how do you get to the heart of what the other person cares about enough to really drive something through. And I think one thing I'll say is, like we
were founded in Canada, Canadian company based in Toronto. Now, we predominantly American in terms of the store accountant and a lot of our staff, but we had a pandemic where I couldn't cross the border for two years. So, like you, if you take away that block of time and if I just happened to be stateside, I think
we would have had more of those names on sooner. Now, saying that we're in a very good position with a lot of names that you're shared and we're really focused on I think I think allowed here in a couple of months again and we'll have another update. I think that's I think that's the right way to go.
Okay, So what different verticals are you thinking about?
So one of the most exciting things that we're actually doing right now with a third party delivery company one of our grocery partners. All of our grocery partners have distribution centers that have waste because they can't get through so they bring all this food into these centralized locations and then they try to send it out to their stores and for whatever reason, there could be a breakdown.
There could be a snowstorm, there could be a flood, and they can't get the food to their stores in time. So at the distribution centers there happens to be a higher amount of than normal of fresh food waste. And what we've done with one of our partners is partnered with a third party delivery company and put a flash food storefront. So they took a location on that distribution center's facility and they retrofitted it. It was like an
old guard shed. They retrofitted it, cleaned it up, put a bunch of fridges in and it's now a flash food storefront. And we actually have a flash food by Meyer storefront in Lansing, Michigan on the door dash app. So if you're in Lansing, Michigan, you can order groceries at up to fifty percent off delivered to your door.
That's great.
And what's the business been like with that model?
Right, it's early and Lancing is a university town, so without having the university in town, it's just there was yeah, no, no, it's fine. There were just kinks to for example, like at the beginning there was only five mile radius for delivery, and just so happens at these facilities that are going to be with every CpG or every food company are going to be in places that not a lot of people live. So you just you learn things as you go.
It's a brand new vertical for us, but that has sense almost tripled in terms of like the coverage and the radius.
What's the delivery time though, or the delivery is it a long distance.
Now same day same day delivery?
And the cost for the delivery.
I think it's five dollars depending on the order size, but it's like between five and ten dollars, but your order is up to fifty percent off of the food that you're getting. So this is a model that we're testing out now. It's going well, it's going better than we anticipate at the stage, better than the original model. I think it can be here than our original model in terms of the amount of food waste production. I think it's different. I think it adds a whole bunch
of different partners. I think all of these CpG companies have locations across America. Yeah, consumer product good companies have I know that they have locations across America that have wasted their facilities. Like there's a there's a scenario here where this could be a really big vertical for US.
You also mentioned you have a bit of a reach on TikTok.
Now, yeah, so the Josh no no, no, no no, the flash Food brand, we would not we would not have any reach if it was the Josh we're getting like, yeah, exactly, and the kids that'll probably be more exciting as people are on boxing and shoppers are on boxing.
So on flash Food, you buy a box of produce and you you see a picture of what's going to be in it. But a lot of times people are opening this box and they're seeing items that they never tried before. So there's been like a pretty big unboxing theme on TikTok where people are sharing what they're getting,
and then they're also sharing. For example, like one person gets one hundred bananas for five dollars, they'll unbox it and they'll be like they'll know they're getting a bunch of bananas, but they're like, Okay, what am I gonna do with all these bananas? And then you'll see them
share that. They'll be content going back and people saying try this, try this, and so this is the other side of it, like we've built a platform that's helping retailers make more money, reduce waste drive in new shoppers. But there's also a whole angle here on like the origination of what are you making? What are you doing in the kitchen? Like what are you trying? What are you cooking? And it's becoming a fun part of the process in a way that I personally didn't anticipate when we started.
What's the most difficult part of the business.
Getting more retailers on board faster? That's it because I'll sit down with an executive and share all the things that I've shared on the show, and they're just There's one executive of a big retailer who has whatever, almost two thousand locations, and I was like, why don't you
just do this in all your stories. He's like, what people don't realize is we have, however, many thousand employees, However many hundreds of thousands of shoppers that come into the stores every day, and there was a coffee mug in front of them. He's like, for me to get this coffee mug, move from here to there in one of our stores in Unison consistently on a daily basis is a monumental task. And so as he was saying it that way, I was like, Okay, Yeah, these are
big numbers. So the challenge is like getting scale faster because we are tightly embedded with our grocery partners. We don't have a business if it's not for our partners. And that's unique in a lot of tech companies. And we're not trying to come at this and be smarter than them, because we're not. We just have one vertical that can solve one part of the problem in a really meaningful financial way. And just yeah, that's been it.
I gotta say, Son of a great interview is that you're leaving and I still have like a dozen questions I want to ask you, So you're going to have to come back.
It sounds like there's going to be in the future. Jo just I Mingus.
He's founder in CEO Flash Food. Congratulations on the family and good to see you.
This would be so much for happening