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Walk around your neighborhood these days and you’ll likely see several people gardening in their yards, maybe even see a couple of neighbors walking their dog, or jogging but the sight you’ll almost certainly see is a mail, FedEx or UPS truck. E-commerce spending in the U.S. is up more than 30% from the beginning of March through mid-April compared with the same period last year, according to market research firm Rakuten Intelligence. Despite the outbreak, consumers are turning to direct to consumer products that provide both necessity and self-care, including meal delivery services, milk, cannabis-infused drinks and more.
Chef-crafted meal delivery and smart oven company, Tovala, has seen demand for its meals grow by more than 30 percent with current customers increasing the size of their orders and new customers are signing up for meal subscriptions.
“In our space, food delivery has skyrocketed as people choose to reduce contact at grocery stores,” said Tovala CEO and co-founder David Rabie.
Similarly, cannabis-infused drink company, Cann, which since launching in May 2019 had sold 300,000 cans, sold 50,000 cans in two weeks at the end of March. But keeping up with increasing demand, means the companies have to keep at least some employees working in person.
Early on into the pandemic, Tovala, hired an epidemiologist to advise on safety procedures at their production facility. While everyone outside of their production facility is working from home, they ended up adding a third shift within production to allow for fewer people in the building at any one time.
Farming company, Ark Foods, does a health check, including temperature readings of all employees before they enter one of their production facilities. The health check, is in addition to the social distancing, production breaks for sanitation of packing surfaces, copious amounts of handwashing, as well as other measures.
While the company has seen a drop in its wholesale business, it’s retail business has grown with some retailers telling them to send as much produce as they could.
“The landscape of where and how people eat may change for a long time,” said Noah Robbins, founder and CEO of Ark Foods.
For dairy brand a2 Milk, that changing landscape of where and how people eat and drink means the company is focusing on both educating consumers about its brand and also in online sales. It’s investing in search marketing, among other things, making sure they show up high in results when someone is looking for milk online.
“We’re making sure we’re prepared to shift for more people online shopping,” CEO Blake Waltrip said.
The 4-year-old company saw an increase in sales of more than 30 percent in March and they’re still seeing increases in sales. However, according to Waltrip those increases are happening now in pockets of the country instead of overall.
“One of the untended positives, is we’re getting tried by consumers that wouldn’t normally have tried us,” Waltrip said.
For direct to consumer sweetener brand Purecane, which just finished its first quarter in businesses, the rise in people baking from home has been a boom for their business.
“Each month, we are doing significantly better than the previous,” said Beth Bannerman, SVP of Corporate Communications at Purecane, adding that post-pandemic they’re confident they’ll continue to be in high demand.
“As of right now, Purecane is solely a DTC product as we already see this as the future of shopping,” Bannerman said.
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