Kroger customers can now have restaurant-style meals delivered to their door as the supermarket partners with the cloud-kitchen platform ClusterTruck.
"As we're growing, we were starting to think about strategic partnerships and folks that can take our software platform to the next level," Chris Baggott, CEO and co-founder of ClusterTruck, told Cheddar Thursday. "Kroger — being a Midwestern company like ClusterTruck — they were a natural [fit]."
Cincinnati-based Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the U.S., is launching the service in four cities. ClusterTruck was founded in one of them — Indianapolis.
Kroger's Business Development Leader Ethan Grob says that his company is trying to capitalize on the larger industry trend of delivery-only restaurants.
"If you've been to a restaurant recently, you see third-party delivery people lining up to deliver these restaurant orders, which can take away from the in-store restaurant experience," Grob said. "Restaurants are increasingly looking to take that food preparation out of their main kitchens and into these ghost kitchens or dark kitchens."
And that's exactly what Kroger's found in ClusterTruck.
"We've built a profitable model by being vertically-integrated, and leveraging software and machine learning to control every aspect," Baggott said, citing ClusterTruck's drivers and food cooked in-house.
"We're really tied tight with Kroger on this," Baggott said of his Midwestern neighbor. "We're very invested in being successful with this together."
Australia's government announced regulations for buy now, pay later services, which will be labeled as consumer credit products, which puts them under the country's Securities and Investments Commission's watch.
Walmart is reportedly teaming up with pet telehealth provider Pawp, giving subscribers unlimited access to vet services via video and text, starting on Tuesday.
Cheddar News checks in to see what's on The Day Ahead, which will include earnings from Lowe's, Dick's Sporting Goods, BJ's and AutoZone along with new home sales data. In addition, Microsoft's Build 2023 Developer Conference is slated to kick off for software engineers and web developers.
Amazon will use a new feature in its palm-scanning system to verify one's age to purchase alcohol.
Venmo will soon have accounts for teenagers ages 13-17 but they will have to follow a set of rules, with parents or guardians opening accounts on their behalf under their own accounts.
Rory Harvey, General Motors' incoming North American president, joined Cheddar News to discuss GM's foray into the rapidly-changing electric vehicle market along with what lies ahead. "It's a very dynamic time in the automotive industry," he said. "If you look to the transformation across the EVs, it's happening and it's happening at a pace."
Tesla trimmed prices by offering discounts of around $1,300 for its Model 3 vehicles, continuing price adjustments across its fleet since January.
A new oral weight-loss drug from Pfizer could be more effective than the popular Ozempic injection, based on clinical trial results.
Ford Motor laid out some financial expectations and specific growth objectives for its electric vehicle line at an investors' event on Monday. John Lawler, chief financial officer of Ford Motor Co., joined Cheddar News to explain what lies ahead for the automaker.
Teenagers will officially be allowed to open a Venmo account with their parent's permission, the company said Monday, expanding the popular social payments app to an age demographic that is likely to embrace it almost immediately.
