The majority (53%) of Americans say that deciding what to eat for dinner is a major pain point in their lives, while 44% would regularly buy from a brand that helps them plan meals (Deloitte, 2024). Smart brands are responding with pioneering AI-powered weekly meal schedules, generative AI recipes and in-app demo videos.

Forward-thinking supermarkets and food delivery platforms are creating AI-powered time- and effort-saving digital commerce features that lighten people’s mental load. The best include shopping list syncs that import on-phone grocery lists into apps, cross-meal ingredient combinations and AI-linked local store pilots.

With the grocery last-mile sector set to grow to over $200bn by 2027, up from $108bn in 2020 (Statista, 2024), smart brands and grocery e-tailers are engineering new modes of delivery service design. Key strategies include real-time chat with supermarket pickers, ‘milkman-style’ deliveries following set neighbourhood routes and emissions-saving multi-branded click-and-collect spaces.

Keying into both frugality and the desire to be more eco-friendly, service design anchored by underconsumption (not necessarily spending less but more efficiently, rebuffing wastefulness) is making consumers feel smart rather than cash-strapped. Key initiatives include AI-stewarded spend-optimising, loyalty schemes and upgraded anti-food waste programmes.

Forward-thinking supermarkets and grocery e-tailers are remastering navigation with new concepts deploying the best digital-meets-physical (phygital) technology. Leading examples include providing updates in real-time, twinning augmented reality (AR) directions with in-store promotions relevant to the individual and transposing consumers’ grocery lists onto in-store maps.

New convenience formats are driving grocery sales worldwide (see stats below), flexing to consumers’ daily routines as return to work orders increase. With consumers valuing convenience more than before (also see below) but many still keen to treat themselves where possible, the focus is on healthy ready-to-eat meals, premium snacking (see The New Snacking Roadmap), dinner party-ready foods and store-meets-restaurant models.