Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Hey, so a story popped in on my radar while
Speaker 2: reading in for our next guest. It was from Industry Dive.
Speaker 2: They're a business to business news organization. They wrote, as
Speaker 2: grocers dial up their efforts to reduce food waste, a
Speaker 2: key area of focus within sustainability, artificial intelligence and other
Speaker 2: digital innovations are helping food retailers improve their data processes
Speaker 2: and workforce efficiencies. So I'm curious what our next guest
Speaker 2: has to say about that, and so delighted to have
Speaker 2: back with them. Earlier this year, he was named one
Speaker 2: of Canada's most Influential change makers by the Globe and
Speaker 2: Mails Report on Business magazine. Josh Domingis founded flash Food,
Speaker 2: the digital marketplace that connects consumers to heavily discounted food.
Speaker 2: I always feel like I was thinking about you again?
Speaker 1: Is that? Why the heck? Where weren't doing this sooner? Anyway?
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Welcome back, And Jess was reminded like this
Speaker 1: the first time we had she was here. She's in
Speaker 1: for Tim, but like, nice to have this continuity.
Speaker 3: How are you, I'm doing well.
Speaker 1: I mean, congratulations, you have a bigger family now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. We had another one, so our newness
Speaker 3: is now three months old. And I was joking that,
Speaker 3: like I go from all things crazy at home to
Speaker 3: all things crazy at work, but just on a journey,
Speaker 3: and it's so grateful to be in the position that
Speaker 3: we're at. We're really excited with what's happening stateside, Like.
Speaker 2: Well, tell us about the journey and what's happened since
Speaker 2: April A lot. I mean, you said to me, how's
Speaker 2: the world going.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's crazy, it's nice job. It has just
Speaker 1: been so busy.
Speaker 2: Even with questions about the outlook and all these problems,
Speaker 2: there's growth, people are doing things.
Speaker 1: What's changed since April A lot of things, But.
Speaker 3: I'll say the first thing is like the reliance on
Speaker 3: from shoppers on flash Foot Now, like we've become a
Speaker 3: lifeline for some of our customers. Some of our shoppers
Speaker 3: where like they're not feeding their kids or their families
Speaker 3: as affordably as they would read or as healthily without
Speaker 3: the app. And we're seeing that just play out in
Speaker 3: more and more communities. And there was a story I
Speaker 3: was telling est our director of Commons before we stat
Speaker 3: in here, and me and my president stopped at a
Speaker 3: store in the Midwest last week and we went to
Speaker 3: the store. It was one of our newer stores that
Speaker 3: we had partnered with and still in like kind of
Speaker 3: the pilot phase, and so we weren't going to go
Speaker 3: in and like talk to anybody. We weren't planning on
Speaker 3: doing that. Really, we were just going to kind of
Speaker 3: see how people were doing in the store. We ended
Speaker 3: up meeting the assistant store manager. She's like, you need
Speaker 3: to go talk to the store manager. He pulled in
Speaker 3: the meat department manager who was the one running flash
Speaker 3: food at the store, and he just pulls us society.
Speaker 3: He's like, I've reduced the amount of food that I'm
Speaker 3: throwing out like a ridiculous amount. And then he called
Speaker 3: over the seafood manager who was just like walking by
Speaker 3: and he stopped and he's like, I just want to
Speaker 3: say thank you, Like what you're allowing us to do
Speaker 3: is so impactful. And we left that meeting. We were
Speaker 3: going to another dinner with a couple of other executives
Speaker 3: at Admire in the Midwest, and the store that we
Speaker 3: left and I was talking to my president and I'm
Speaker 3: just like, this is not like it's not like a
Speaker 3: surprise factor. It's not like a reinvigoration. It's more like confirmatory.
Speaker 3: To me, it just is so obvious that this is
Speaker 3: going to continue to happen and the scale is going
Speaker 3: to keep happening, and we're going to be in every
Speaker 3: community in America, like it's just a matter of time.
Speaker 3: So it's balancing that with I guess the headwinds that
Speaker 3: are the grocery sector, that are the food sector that.
Speaker 2: Like and I want to give you that, but give me,
Speaker 2: give me we are bloomberg, So we get a little
Speaker 2: like number crazy, but give me an.
Speaker 1: Idea in terms of like we'll go ahead, good, Well.
Speaker 4: The size and scoop that he threw out the last
Speaker 4: time he was here, he was talking about how it's
Speaker 4: about five to ten thousand dollars of food every day
Speaker 4: of stores throwing out and that really stuck out to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've now saved shoppers. So one number that comes
Speaker 3: to mind is like, we've now saved shoppers over two
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars in their groceries, like and and we're
Speaker 3: in just under two thousand stores. There's so what does
Speaker 3: that mean.
Speaker 1: So when somebody shop, tell me what that number means.
Speaker 3: The average the average discount on flash food is about
Speaker 3: fifty percent off. Okay, So, like we've saved shoppers in
Speaker 3: total across the entire platform over two hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: now and then like we're in nineteen hundred stores. There's
Speaker 3: forty or fifty thousand grocery stores in America, Like we're
Speaker 3: still just scratching the surface. There's still so much opportunity.
Speaker 5: Who's shopping? Who is your shopper.
Speaker 3: It's funny I was talking about this earlier, Like there's
Speaker 3: a small cohort of people that don't have to ever
Speaker 3: think about how much their grocery, their groceries are, And
Speaker 3: there's a.
Speaker 1: Cohort increasingly, not because I feel like.
Speaker 2: To be fair, To be fair, there's people who are
Speaker 2: sat on.
Speaker 3: It's a very small number and it's getting smaller. And
Speaker 3: there's a small number of people who just like are
Speaker 3: on the other spectrum, and our shoppers are the mass
Speaker 3: market that's in between. Like, it's not just people who
Speaker 3: need to save money on their groceries. People need to
Speaker 3: save money anywhere now, So in terms of the shopper,
Speaker 3: it's typically young moms that are our main shopper. But
Speaker 3: it runs the gamut, like across the spectrum economically.
Speaker 1: How does it work exactly?
Speaker 3: If you go to the store, remind.
Speaker 5: Everybody because I know you went through this last time.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so you usually check the app, so I'll
Speaker 3: talk the flow. You check the app in the morning,
Speaker 3: you see what a store posts, you buy it. So
Speaker 3: let's say you buy a pack of chicken rest and
Speaker 3: it's fifty percent off. Anytime that day, you go to
Speaker 3: the store and you go to the flash Food zone,
Speaker 3: which is by the customer service desk usually, and they
Speaker 3: have a device with the list of names of people
Speaker 3: that are coming to pick up. You just say I'm Jess,
Speaker 3: I bought this chicken through flash Food. They click your name,
Speaker 3: click confirm, pick up, grab your item for you, give
Speaker 3: it to you, and you're done. So the transaction happens
Speaker 3: in the app, and that way you know that your
Speaker 3: food's going to be waiting for you there anytime in
Speaker 3: the day. We actually have stories of people who will
Speaker 3: like buy from multiple stores and they'll send their father
Speaker 3: in law, their mother in law, whoever's coming home from
Speaker 3: work that day, like, hey, stop at the store. You
Speaker 3: got to grab my order. That's actually becoming more of
Speaker 3: the thing as we add more locations.
Speaker 5: Are they restrictions on how much you can buy?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: No, do you typically sell out?
Speaker 1: It's the purple fridge.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we're selling like depending on the store, but
Speaker 3: we're selling seventy five to eighty percent of all the
Speaker 3: food that makes its way on the flash food platform.
Speaker 3: Some of the markets, some of the stores as we like,
Speaker 3: have been on for a while, more shoppers know about
Speaker 3: them when we launched. There's some like education to let
Speaker 3: shoppers know. For example, like from the last time I
Speaker 3: was here, we went from I think it was like
Speaker 3: ten or fifteen stores with Stopping Shop to now over
Speaker 3: three hundred stores live with them across New England, New Jersey,
Speaker 3: New York. So Stopping Shop is our biggest expansion in
Speaker 3: the last quarter that we've had.
Speaker 4: So in context as far as if something is two
Speaker 4: to three days before the expiration date is due or
Speaker 4: even weak out, what causes that to happen? Are people
Speaker 4: just going in not if it's stays suitor. Are they
Speaker 4: not wanting to grab that and they're trying to buy
Speaker 4: something that's going to last a little bit longer? So
Speaker 4: that's why stores end up having to throw this out.
Speaker 3: That's exactly it. It's consumer habits, specifically in North America,
Speaker 3: when we go grocery shopping, we're always reaching at the
Speaker 3: back for whatever has long. Yeah, we're all guilty of it,
Speaker 3: and the near dated stuff moves to the front, and we.
Speaker 4: Think that there's not quite as many items left. I'm
Speaker 4: kind of questioning why things might be there.
Speaker 3: That's exactly the next point. If you go buy a
Speaker 3: watermelon and there's one on the shelf, consumer so the
Speaker 3: worst one. So the retailer has to stop the shelves.
Speaker 3: So it's a combination so that we get selection. It's
Speaker 3: a combination of like inventory getting into the store, but
Speaker 3: also consumer habits that drives to this like dual sided problem.
Speaker 2: I guess as someone who's created this business, Josh, do
Speaker 2: you think about, like you know so much when we
Speaker 2: talk about retail or some other markets. You know, managing
Speaker 2: your supply chain is crucial, right, And I do wonder
Speaker 2: do you think that there is a moment in time
Speaker 2: where food or supermarkets are better at managing their food
Speaker 2: purchases so that there isn't waste that you can't tap
Speaker 2: into or is it not.
Speaker 1: It's not the way this market works.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I'm just curious if you yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not. It's not serving to the business. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I would love if that were the case. From personally,
Speaker 3: from like an environmental perspective, I would love if that
Speaker 3: were the case.
Speaker 1: But is there something about it that almost makes it impossible.
Speaker 3: It's it's not ever going to get there. It's so
Speaker 3: hard to manage inventory and fresh food. Like we're in
Speaker 3: New York City and you can get a banana at
Speaker 3: any time of the year. Like people forget how just
Speaker 3: much of a miracle that is, Like you're not they're
Speaker 3: not growing down the road. You got to get that
Speaker 3: across the world basically, and take that for any item
Speaker 3: like and avocado, the same thing. So as long as
Speaker 3: our habits are as they are, which they will continue
Speaker 3: to be, it's basically impossible to be perfect on your inventory.
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny? Like I think about growing up, I'm
Speaker 1: older than both of you, but it's.
Speaker 2: Like peaches were in season, like this was in season
Speaker 2: corn in you know, like there was just certain things
Speaker 2: that we would have and it was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: But it's not that way anymore, it's.
Speaker 3: Gone away very different, and now if they don't have
Speaker 3: something at one store, your competitor has it down the road.
Speaker 3: So like, because of that reason, in addition to supply chain,
Speaker 3: addition to moving food, and in addition to every time
Speaker 3: you touch food like it degrades its quality a little bit,
Speaker 3: it's just really really difficult to get fresh food right forecasting.
Speaker 3: So my belief is, no matter what, we're gonna have
Speaker 3: a surplus in North America food at the grocery stores.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to reduce over time, but I
Speaker 3: think it's always going to be there. And I say
Speaker 3: that having friendships close ties with some of these companies
Speaker 3: that are doing what you're saying, like using AI and
Speaker 3: leveraging the best way you can order, the best way
Speaker 3: you like, you can adopt your systems to being perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Sit tight. Sure, we want to talk more. Awesome,
Speaker 1: I want to pick your brain more.
Speaker 2: Josh Domingus is going to stay with us. He's founder
Speaker 2: and CEO of Flash Food. Fascinating story, and I feel
Speaker 2: like Jessice fits into. We were talking with Eric Shatsker
Speaker 2: about the Bloomberg Catalyst. Yes, the New Economy Catalyst. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are people who are doing this, like thinking about
Speaker 2: food and food production.
Speaker 4: And also climate goes into that as well.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So we're going to continue this conversation just a moment.
Speaker 2: I want to get right back to Josh Tamingus, founder
Speaker 2: and CEO of Flash Food, still here with us in
Speaker 2: our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. As you know that they
Speaker 2: are a digital marketplace. They bring together consumers or connect
Speaker 2: consumers to heavily discounted food that is nearing its.
Speaker 1: Best before date. Fascinating to hear what you are doing.
Speaker 1: One thing I have a question with you with you
Speaker 1: is where's the Whole.
Speaker 2: Foods, Walmart, the Costco, the kroger the Wegmans, the Albertson's,
Speaker 2: the all d to partner with you? What's what's the
Speaker 2: conversations you're having?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm assuming you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And if anybody knows any of them, like
Speaker 3: give them a call. No, we're speaking to uh, We're
Speaker 3: speaking to basically everybody in America.
Speaker 5: Do they want to do it?
Speaker 3: Yes? And you have different levels within these big companies,
Speaker 3: decision making from different people. It depends who you get
Speaker 3: in through with some of the like we are what
Speaker 3: I'll say is we're very focused on being national in
Speaker 3: America and that is something that we continuously are focusing on.
Speaker 3: And then with some of those companies, like I think
Speaker 3: it's a matter of time, Like I just for whatever reason.
Speaker 5: Bring them revenue, you potentially bring them new customers.
Speaker 3: We will absolutely drive in new shoppers that I'll spend
Speaker 3: more money in their stores, will help produce the waistline,
Speaker 3: drive in like a contract of their waistline. So it's
Speaker 3: just found money in a lot of ways. But the
Speaker 3: challenge with big companies, and this is not just grocery,
Speaker 3: is you have a strategic priority list. What do you
Speaker 3: pull out to put something new in front of and
Speaker 3: who's owning it, who in the organization, who's allowed a speaker,
Speaker 3: who has the most like opportunity to do it? And
Speaker 3: that is the hard part of selling anything into a
Speaker 3: massive company. It's not whether somebody wants to do a
Speaker 3: thing or not, because a lot of folks and a
Speaker 3: lot of companies are excited about new ideas. It's really like,
Speaker 3: how do you get to the heart of what the
Speaker 3: other person cares about enough to really drive something through.
Speaker 3: And I think one thing I'll say is, like we
Speaker 3: were founded in Canada, Canadian company based in Toronto. Now,
Speaker 3: we predominantly American in terms of the store accountant and
Speaker 3: a lot of our staff, but we had a pandemic
Speaker 3: where I couldn't cross the border for two years. So,
Speaker 3: like you, if you take away that block of time
Speaker 3: and if I just happened to be stateside, I think
Speaker 3: we would have had more of those names on sooner. Now,
Speaker 3: saying that we're in a very good position with a
Speaker 3: lot of names that you're shared and we're really focused
Speaker 3: on I think I think allowed here in a couple
Speaker 3: of months again and we'll have another update. I think
Speaker 3: that's I think that's the right way to go.
Speaker 4: Okay, So what different verticals are you thinking about?
Speaker 3: So one of the most exciting things that we're actually
Speaker 3: doing right now with a third party delivery company one
Speaker 3: of our grocery partners. All of our grocery partners have
Speaker 3: distribution centers that have waste because they can't get through
Speaker 3: so they bring all this food into these centralized locations
Speaker 3: and then they try to send it out to their
Speaker 3: stores and for whatever reason, there could be a breakdown.
Speaker 3: There could be a snowstorm, there could be a flood,
Speaker 3: and they can't get the food to their stores in time.
Speaker 3: So at the distribution centers there happens to be a
Speaker 3: higher amount of than normal of fresh food waste. And
Speaker 3: what we've done with one of our partners is partnered
Speaker 3: with a third party delivery company and put a flash
Speaker 3: food storefront. So they took a location on that distribution
Speaker 3: center's facility and they retrofitted it. It was like an
Speaker 3: old guard shed. They retrofitted it, cleaned it up, put
Speaker 3: a bunch of fridges in and it's now a flash
Speaker 3: food storefront. And we actually have a flash food by
Speaker 3: Meyer storefront in Lansing, Michigan on the door dash app.
Speaker 3: So if you're in Lansing, Michigan, you can order groceries
Speaker 3: at up to fifty percent off delivered to your door.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 5: And what's the business been like with that model?
Speaker 3: Right, it's early and Lancing is a university town, so
Speaker 3: without having the university in town, it's just there was yeah, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's fine. There were just kinks to for example, like
Speaker 3: at the beginning there was only five mile radius for delivery,
Speaker 3: and just so happens at these facilities that are going
Speaker 3: to be with every CpG or every food company are
Speaker 3: going to be in places that not a lot of
Speaker 3: people live. So you just you learn things as you go.
Speaker 3: It's a brand new vertical for us, but that has
Speaker 3: sense almost tripled in terms of like the coverage and
Speaker 3: the radius.
Speaker 5: What's the delivery time though, or the delivery is it
Speaker 5: a long distance.
Speaker 3: Now same day same day delivery?
Speaker 1: And the cost for the delivery.
Speaker 3: I think it's five dollars depending on the order size,
Speaker 3: but it's like between five and ten dollars, but your
Speaker 3: order is up to fifty percent off of the food
Speaker 3: that you're getting. So this is a model that we're
Speaker 3: testing out now. It's going well, it's going better than
Speaker 3: we anticipate at the stage, better than the original model.
Speaker 3: I think it can be here than our original model
Speaker 3: in terms of the amount of food waste production. I
Speaker 3: think it's different. I think it adds a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of different partners. I think all of these CpG companies
Speaker 3: have locations across America. Yeah, consumer product good companies have
Speaker 3: I know that they have locations across America that have
Speaker 3: wasted their facilities. Like there's a there's a scenario here
Speaker 3: where this could be a really big vertical for US.
Speaker 4: You also mentioned you have a bit of a reach
Speaker 4: on TikTok.
Speaker 6: Now, yeah, so the Josh no no, no, no no,
Speaker 6: the flash Food brand, we would not we would not
Speaker 6: have any reach if it was the Josh we're getting like, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 6: and the kids that'll probably be more exciting as people
Speaker 6: are on boxing and shoppers are on boxing.
Speaker 3: So on flash Food, you buy a box of produce
Speaker 3: and you you see a picture of what's going to
Speaker 3: be in it. But a lot of times people are
Speaker 3: opening this box and they're seeing items that they never
Speaker 3: tried before. So there's been like a pretty big unboxing
Speaker 3: theme on TikTok where people are sharing what they're getting,
Speaker 3: and then they're also sharing. For example, like one person
Speaker 3: gets one hundred bananas for five dollars, they'll unbox it
Speaker 3: and they'll be like they'll know they're getting a bunch
Speaker 3: of bananas, but they're like, Okay, what am I gonna
Speaker 3: do with all these bananas? And then you'll see them
Speaker 3: share that. They'll be content going back and people saying
Speaker 3: try this, try this, and so this is the other
Speaker 3: side of it, like we've built a platform that's helping
Speaker 3: retailers make more money, reduce waste drive in new shoppers.
Speaker 3: But there's also a whole angle here on like the
Speaker 3: origination of what are you making? What are you doing
Speaker 3: in the kitchen? Like what are you trying? What are
Speaker 3: you cooking? And it's becoming a fun part of the
Speaker 3: process in a way that I personally didn't anticipate when
Speaker 3: we started.
Speaker 5: What's the most difficult part of the business.
Speaker 3: Getting more retailers on board faster? That's it because I'll
Speaker 3: sit down with an executive and share all the things
Speaker 3: that I've shared on the show, and they're just There's
Speaker 3: one executive of a big retailer who has whatever, almost
Speaker 3: two thousand locations, and I was like, why don't you
Speaker 3: just do this in all your stories. He's like, what
Speaker 3: people don't realize is we have, however, many thousand employees,
Speaker 3: However many hundreds of thousands of shoppers that come into
Speaker 3: the stores every day, and there was a coffee mug
Speaker 3: in front of them. He's like, for me to get
Speaker 3: this coffee mug, move from here to there in one
Speaker 3: of our stores in Unison consistently on a daily basis
Speaker 3: is a monumental task. And so as he was saying
Speaker 3: it that way, I was like, Okay, Yeah, these are
Speaker 3: big numbers. So the challenge is like getting scale faster
Speaker 3: because we are tightly embedded with our grocery partners. We
Speaker 3: don't have a business if it's not for our partners.
Speaker 3: And that's unique in a lot of tech companies. And
Speaker 3: we're not trying to come at this and be smarter
Speaker 3: than them, because we're not. We just have one vertical
Speaker 3: that can solve one part of the problem in a
Speaker 3: really meaningful financial way. And just yeah, that's been it.
Speaker 2: I gotta say, Son of a great interview is that
Speaker 2: you're leaving and I still have like a dozen questions
Speaker 2: I want to ask you, So you're going to have
Speaker 2: to come back.
Speaker 1: It sounds like there's going to be in the future.
Speaker 1: Jo just I Mingus.
Speaker 2: He's founder in CEO Flash Food. Congratulations on the family
Speaker 2: and good to see you.
Speaker 3: This would be so much for happening