Lets start with the problem – after all if we don’t have a problem we don’t need a solution and I love solutions
Any grocery app that helps me buy food without knowing what I already have is part of the waste problem.
Woolworths has announced a partnership with Google to upgrade its Olive chatbot with agentic artificial intelligence. The system will plan meals, read handwritten recipes, apply loyalty discounts and add items directly into your online basket.
The full analysis is laid out clearly in this Conversation piece.
The concern raised there is about nudging, autonomy and who really makes decisions when AI starts assembling baskets for us. Most households are already wrestling with a more basic problem.
The app doesn’t look in your fridge. The app doesn’t look in your pantry.
Without that, everything else is noise. Meal plans mean nothing if half the ingredients are already sitting at the back of the crisper. Discounts don’t help if you’re buying something you forgot you owned. Adding items to a basket just accelerates the cycle.
Here is my favourite bit. What could the solution be?
What people actually want is much simpler.
Scan the fridge. Scan the pantry.
Here’s what you already have.
Here’s what needs using.
Here are three meals you can cook with it.
And sometimes, here’s the best advice of all, you don’t need to shop.
Instead, we’re being offered another system that speeds up buying and shifts the consequences back onto the shopper.
I won’t be using it.
Food should be practical. It should fit around tired nights and changing plans. It should not become another place where we are nudged to feel inefficient or inadequate.
Build a tool that starts with what’s already in my fridge and pantry and tells me what I need not what will increase returns to shareholders. Until then, I’m not interested.
And what’s in it for Woolworths you ask?
What’s in it for Woolworths is trust, loyalty, and a system people believe is on their side.
I have a pen and a pad to write my shopping list, my eyes to look in the fridge and pantry to purchase what I need.
Hi Brian
I applaud the simplicity of your system. See my reply to Leonie who agrees with you above. This is why the type of app that I have suggested appeals to me.
Hello Lynne, I’m always grateful for your insights and advocacy. But, with this one, rather than relying on another app. why can’t all of us take the personal responsibility you allude to and eyeball the pantry, the fridge, under the kitchen sink, the laundry and the bathroom to compile the list of what we need? Woolworths provide a great resource with their cheapest unit price comparison, online only specials etc. Above all, most people’s shopping is constrained by a budget, so hopefully this stops them being nudged into ‘false needs’.
Leonie, I agree that all of us can eyeball the pantry and the fridge.
Where I come at this from is long experience with stock systems. I worked in a pharmacy for 25 years. Before stock software, everything relied on memory and visual checks. Once scanning came in, the change was immediate. You scanned what came in, scanned what went out, and every week or fortnight the system told you exactly what you’d used and what to order. The accuracy was extraordinary. It meant when someone walked in with a prescription, you almost always had it on the shelf.
You could still eyeball the shelves. The system simply caught what humans miss, especially when things are stacked, hidden, or moving quickly.
My pantry and fridge are small. Things sit behind other things. That’s normal.
So yes, personal responsibility exists. My point is about where technology starts. If it starts with what’s already in the house, it helps. If it starts at the checkout, it doesn’t.