Chak's Take on "Move," Chai Mishra's Kickstarter Project - Why Back This Project?

You may have heard about the common high-end supermarkets from Whole Foods to Wegmans, Trader Joe's to Aldi, and much more.

But I also heard of many more stores out there with more organic products. One of them being Sprouts Farmers Market, which heavy emphasis on fruits and vegetables. For me, the most common supermarkets around Silicon Valley besides Sprouts are Walmart, Safeway, Nob Hill Foods (Raley's if in Sacramento), Grocery Outlet, Smart & Final, and Trader Joes. Costco or Sams Club are not included in this one, as the two usually offer items in much larger sizes than standard grocery stores.

The primary focus of this blog is on a supermarket named "Move," a future digital supermarket created by Chaitanya (Chai) Mishra, as well as my comparisons into pricing between Move and Whole Food's main rival. He highlighted in his Kickstarter project as to why he wants to revolutionize the way we all shop for goods.

Let's briefly talk about Chai's focus for foods: He wants to have more of the more common products that commonly sells a lot than those who sell for nothing. He's talking about up to 500 goods, in fact. That's a lot smaller than what a typical supermarket's number of items available in store, but it's for quality control. His problem focuses on how the quality of the foods tasted from online shopping - which by the way tends to be worse. He is right, thus the reason why I have never used online shopping for fresh foods (especially fruits and vegetables) at many e-commerce websites like Walmart or Amazon.

Pre-made meals is also a problem not only on Chai's end, but particularly on my end as well. I often find many of the cooked foods very bland in taste by the time it is served at the time of day that I choose, which in my case is breakfast. Many people often have their on-the-go foods at lunch or dinner. I just hope that Move can make and revolutionize meals from certified five-star, celebrity, or Michelin-rated chefs or restaurants that can be $10 or less - one of which I can remember hearing about a Singaporean dish for a soy sauce chicken and rice that is the world's cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant!

If I have one thing that I am most looking forward to in terms of Move, that would be some exclusive items that I might not be able to find in a grocery or speciality store, like taleggio cheese or New Zealand's famous Mānuka honey. While celebrity chef Chris Cosentino mentioned taleggio cheese and duck eggs in his recipe for his version of the grilled cheese sandwich, I have personally found that specific cheese anywhere in Santa Clara County, but duck eggs are available.

Chai Mishra does compare his prices with Whole Foods, but not Whole Foods main competitor named Sprouts. When I went into a Sprouts store in the Evergreen District of San Jose, this is what I may have found (prices in USD)...

Horseradish:
5oz: 2.49
8oz: 3.49

Organic Blue Agave*...
23.5oz: 8.49
44oz: 12.99

Organic Matcha Green Tea: 14.99
Organic Butternut Squash: 4.99
Wild Sockeye Salmon: 11.99/LB
Organic Coffee, Whole Beans (ALL TYPES): 10.99/LB
California Olive Oil, 16.9oz (Single Source): 15.99
Organic Mustard, 12oz (ALL TYPES): 2.79
Organic Spanish Olive Oil, 25.4oz: 9.99
Organic Portabella Mushrooms: 4.99

Organic Honey...
12oz: 4.49 to 5.99
24oz: 7.99 to 9.99

Organic White Mushrooms...
Whole: 2.99
Sliced: 3.49

Organic Baby Bella Mushrooms...
Whole: 3.49
Sliced: 3.69

Manuka Honey...
Bio Active UMF 20+: 23.99
Bio Active UMF 24+: 26.99
Raw Monoflorial, 8.8oz: 27.99
Raw Monoflorial, 17.6oz: 47.99

Note that for Manuka Honey, that can also be found at Trader Joe's, but at a lower Bio Active UMF 10+, valued at 13.99.

* indicated that organic agave was found at Grocery Outlet, which was 4.99 for a 23.5oz container.

To me, it's really hard to judge who has the better end after a 2018 Business Insider article findings between Whole Foods and Sprouts. Chai Mishra may or may not have read between the 2 rival stores despite that Whole Foods is owned by online retail giant Amazon.

But readers that I found on the Kickstarter project had one common question in mind: What makes Move different? And why did I back this project? The simple answer: No middlemen. But the more detailed answer: I'll let Chai explain that. While Move does try not to talk about any supermarket competitors, here's the response I saw in the comments and in the description, according to Chai Mishra:

"I’d like to go into what we think is missing in the market and, as a result, what we’re building:

1. A Full Digital Supermarket - there is yet to be a full digital supermarket that sells all of your grocery staples together. Most notably, no one currently sells perishables online (meats, dairy, produce, meals etc.) There have been a lot of “partial” supermarkets that sell pantry items but none that you can actually live off of. We think building a full supermarket online is an incredibly difficult but worthwhile endeavor. I think the only way we can unlock the full potential of direct to consumer commerce is if companies start to deliver an outsized value to their users. That’s what we’re trying to do for our members.

2. Better quality products - there is no online store that has actually made a dent in the quality of everyday products. Online supermarkets tend to sell worse versions of what offline, traditional supermarkets offer. We think the online model can be incredible force for quality. Just think about it - we can find the greatest olive oil in the World and make it accessible to everyone. That’s an entire paradigm shift from how offline supermarkets operate.

3. An Ethical and Transparent Supply Chain - the traditional supply chain for products tends to be inefficient, exploitative and opaque. Unfortunately, digital retailers have done nothing about the ethics of the supply chain- but they have made it a lot less transparent. Somehow, when buying food online, we know even less about those products than we do offline. Again, I think the online model can be a singular force for good here. Being online allows us to tell our members so much more about the products- who made them, how much money the producer made etc. We utilize that right fully, sharing every bit of information that we can about the products we ship.

4. An obsession with the customer experience - I’ll use this as an umbrella point for a lot of things (since I know how long I’m going here). Most e-commerce companies have somewhat blindly copied the digital experience of Amazon. But that doesn’t actually make sense since people shop for staples in a very different way from how they shop for specialty products like sweaters. We’ve spent a lot of time building a new model for e-commerce. That includes everything from a bold, new online interface to a personal shopper and free 2-day delivery. We’re obsessed with the design of the customers experience on a site and we’ve spent a lot of time perfecting it on our site.

5. Vision - this is obviously subjective. I’m sure others would argue that they have vision as well. When I talk about vision, I’m talking about a conception of what commerce should look like decades from now and building for that. The market seems to be focused on slapping their label on anything they can and marking it up as much as they can. We take a long view on this and invest in technology and practices that we think matter. For example, we’ve spent hundreds of hours helping our producers scale up or exploring how to employ block chain to create more transparency or developing fairer practices at our own distribution centers.

We believe deeply in a model of commerce that’s more efficient and ethical. And we’re going to continue spending our time and efforts building it!"

I think that if all of the five areas that Chai mentioned are to be achieved well, then I believe that all supermarkets in a local area, including those that are discounted, will need to be looked at and studied soon. Whether a local farmers market is competitive or not is up to Chai and his staff to decide as well.

If Chai Mishra wants to respond to what my findings are, he may want to compare those prices at Sprouts with Whole Foods and Move before he does respond... or see me in person. 

Chai Mishra can seek me on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram