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.