Hungryroot

Thrilled to have had Ben McKean, Founder and CEO of Hungryroot, on our CEOs You Should Know podcast. In this episode, Ben shares how his team is revolutionizing the way we shop and eat. Learn how Hungryroot is redefining how we approach eating and shopping for food.

The best career advice I’ve received was from Jeff Holden who told me to “never fail silently.” This has stuck with me because it speaks to being ambitious and taking risks, but also working proactively and transparently to minimize risk, two of our core values at Hungryroot. At times we will fail, and that’s okay. We are pursuing an ambitious mission — to lead the grocery industry in using AI to help people live better, healthier lives. But failing silently is not okay. It means not recognizing or clearly communicating when something is not going well. We will face challenges, and as long as we are proactive and transparent, we can work as a team to solve them. We recently recognized this ethos — as well as their extraordinary contributions — in several key promotions at Hungryroot: Dwayne Searwar to SVP Operations, Phil Jeffs to SVP Product, Antoine Atallah to SVP Data Science, Benjamin Zhang to Director Engineering, Wally Chang to Director Engineering, Mayank Gupta to Sr Software Engineer, Sergio Lopez Lazzarini to QA Automation Engineer, Jingchen Cao to Sr Operations Research Engineer, Xiaowei Bao to Principle Operations Research Engineer, Kevin Huang to Sr Data Engineer, Sanat Malhotra to Mgr Food Analytics, Katie Tully to Creative Director, Nicholas Faiello to Sr Photographer, Allison St. Rock to Marketing Mgr, Erin Carroll to Marketing Mgr, Isaac Mccracken to Sr Mgr Transportation, Laura Kershaw to Sr Packaging Engineer, Beth Goodman to Inventory Associate, Jesse Lankford to Lead Product Designer, and Morgan Jenswold to Employee Experience Lead. Congratulations to all of you. I’m fortunate to work with each of you, and grateful that you ambitiously drive our mission forward each day while ensuring that we never fail silently. 

What’s AI hype versus reality? At the Citi GenAI Conference yesterday, we discussed the current state of AI, its promise and limitations, and investor and consumer perceptions. Here are some takeaways: When people talk about AI today, they tend to focus on generative AI, which we’ve become familiar with through tools like ChatGPT. In fact, Citi’s conference wasn’t the AI Conference, it was the GenAI Conference. That’s because generative AI is where major innovations have occurred recently, plus it’s relatable — it can talk to us, create art, write code, and more. At Hungryroot, our sequence predictor system, which we built from scratch to predict what you’ll want next based on your recent orders is generative AI, but we also have a classical AI recommender system and other non-gen AI models that are equally transformative. Over the next couple of years, we believe the focus will return to the opportunity in AI more broadly, with less emphasis on the large language models associated with generative AI. Relatedly, people tend to think about AI as having three layers: infrastructure (NVIDIA, Amazon Web Services (AWS), etc.), models (OpenAI, Google, etc.), and applications (Netflix, Glean, etc.). There’s a lot of debate about where the most value will accrue. Some people think it will look like an hourglass (most of the value to the infrastructure and application layers); others think it’ll be a pear (value to the infrastructure and models). At Hungryroot, we’re most bullish about the application layer and how innovations can disrupt entire industries. At the application layer, it’s clear the focus is currently on the enterprise. At the Citi conference, Hungryroot was the only consumer company that presented; the other 20+ presenting companies sell their AI solutions to businesses. Alongside Sanjay Dhawan, Bob van Luijt and Vishal Marria, I spoke about vertical applications of AI, specifically how it’s disrupting the grocery industry, creating entirely new customer experiences that are more convenient and tailored to personal goals. Lastly, it’s clear leading in AI requires constant innovation and growth since the technology is advancing so rapidly. Our goal at Hungryroot is to lead the grocery industry in using AI to help people live better, healthier lives. We were also recently named one of the top companies in the world using #AI to combat food waste. The opportunity is huge, and we are inspired each day by the challenge. Thank you to Elinor L. Hoover, Jan Metzger and the Citi team for including us in the conference.

Hungryroot is proud to be listed among the top 20 companies in the world using AI to fight food waste. 🌎

I've been a Hungryroot customer for a few years now...probably three or four at this point. And there are a few key reasons why I love it: 🍴 Its recipes are health AND easy. A double whammy for my household. 🍴 Recipes each week are tailored based on my personal preferences and eating habits. 🍴 If I'm in need of more basic grocery staples, I can easily update my order and use my credits to incorporate some fun snacks, breakfast goods and produce into the mix. 🍴 And so much more! But there's a lot of work that goes behind into the Hungryroot experience behind the scenes, including its robust operations to get products to customers quickly and efficiently AND minimize food waste. I wanted to understand how it all worked, so I invited the company's CDO Alex Weinstein on the show. First of all: his passion for the industry and the Hungryroot business is CONTAGIOUS. Second: I loved hearing how his left brain and right brain conjoin, because we spent equal time geeking out on tech as basic brand differentiation and CX principles. I know this grocery ecomm/delivery space is fascinating for many, so I think this episode provides a fascinating inside scoop to one of the top companies in this sector. #ecommerce #digitalgrocery #retail #grocerytrends

We care a lot about food — not just how it tastes, but where it comes from. The EATS Act is counter to everything we stand for here at Hungryroot, dangerously undoing common-sense animal welfare regulations. Together with other industry leaders, we're proud to oppose the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act (S.2019 and H.R.4417) and any version of this legislation. The stakes are high; the bill threatens to overturn two state laws, California Prop 12 and Massachusetts' Question 3, which require farm animals to be raised without cruel, intensive factory farming practices. If you'd like to get involved, contact your legislators and let them know that you oppose any version of the EATS Act and any effort to undermine Prop 12 or Question 3 in the Farm Bill. The future of animal welfare is in our hands.

I just published a big report on Hungryroot, a fascinating online grocery startup ($330mm in sales last year, 40% growth) that you should know more about. There is a lot of talk about #AI someday transforming the shopping and commerce experience — this is a company that's already doing it. Around 70% of the groceries it sells are chosen by its algorithm, which is entirely focused on customer retention. Some great details in here — thanks, Ben McKean, for your time. The New Consumer:

This week I had the honor of serving as a judge for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. Three takeaways: (1) Entrepreneur is not a title, it’s a mindset. It’s more than being a founder. It’s a love of problem solving, creating, and making a difference. It’s optimism and grit, and it doesn’t have to be limited to business. (2) Every business needs a purpose. Even companies that are inherently more transactional (selling tires, for example) can positively impact the world. It’s the entrepreneur’s job to find and articulate that deeper meaning. (3) It’s okay to be proud. In fact, it’s part of your job. After we raised our Series C at Hungryroot, I felt a bit of imposter syndrome. But as we’ve progressed and with advice from my trusted advisor and friend Mindy Grossman, I’ve realized it’s my job to market myself and my company. If you believe in your company’s purpose, you have a responsibility to share it with your head held high. Congrats to all of this year’s finalists (award winners will be announced soon): April Koh Harry Ritter Brad Charron Tracy Ongena, CDP Brian Rudolph Scott Rudolph Tom Fogarty Frank Yu Phil B. Christine Chang Sarah Lee Saad Alam Alex Ross Jared Karson Jose Herrera Devin Daly Roman Pedan Ben Lewis Jason Guss Gal Krubiner Nathan Kondamuri Michael Kopko Pete Anevski Arnaud Plas Ben Checketts Nate Checketts Nicole Wegman Dilip Rao Chuck Canton Brian Bordainick Alex Eu Kevin Rikio Shiiba Michael Sutherland Brown Jared K. Bharanidharan Rajakumar Glen Moller Aaron Schumm

Our founder and CEO Ben McKean and Lightspeed investor Jeremy Liew were on CNBC today talking about how Hungryroot uses AI to cut food waste by up to 80% in our warehouses and at our customers’ homes. Take a look! 🥗🌎 https://lnkd.in/dHK_-3hA

💥 Vanity metrics alert! 🎉 We just hit $1,000,000,000 of lifetime revenue at Hungryroot. That’s one billion dollars of sales since our founding with the majority coming over the past 18 months. Why does this matter? It doesn’t. What matters is the impact we have on our customers’ lives, like Kamie, Rebecca and Peggy as shown below. This is what motivates us each day — to help people feel their best through easy, healthy food. But we’re also proud of the scale we’ve reached, for the bigger we get, the more people we can support. If you’re one of those people who have trusted us to feed your family, we thank you today, as always.