Speedy grocery delivery company goPuff has joined the ghost kitchen and prepared meals trend. The service, called Gopuff Kitchen, will deliver made-to-order meals to customers along with their delivery of household items. Customers can order breakfast, lunch, dinner or a late-night snack.
“Nowhere else can you order your everyday essentials while also taking care of dinner for the family or getting a quick coffee, all from one platform,” said Daniel Folkman, Gopuff’s SVP of Business. “This is only possible through our unique business model that features a network of hundreds of our own micro-fulfillment centers, and now, kitchens.”
For the kitchen initiative, GoPuff started a pilot project at 20 of its microfullfillment centers and has already made numerous deliveries. The company plans to launch additional kitchens in the future. GoPuff said the kitchen project was started when it purchased Bandit, an app.-based coffee shop, founded by Max Crowley.
“We started Bandit with a focus on improving the customer experience, understanding that consumer preferences were rapidly shifting to mobile orders, especially for fresh everyday items such as coffee,” said Crowley, who is now Gopuff’ vice president of business expansion. “Together with Gopuff, we are taking this mission to the next level and beyond by making it easier than ever to get everyday essentials alongside quality food and drinks all in less than thirty minutes.”
The company continues to raise funds. It recently raised $1.2 billion and is now valued at $8.9 billion. Funders included Softbank.
Based in Philadelphia, goPuff originally found success with college students but has expanded to other markets.
“We have people from all walks of life ordering goPuff, whether it’s a mom who needs her diapers or baby products delivered or a pet owner that needs pet food,” goPuff co-founder Rafael Ilishayev said.“We’re actually seeing the fastest year-over-year growth in these new innovative categories, rather than kind of the traditional core goPuff categories that we launched with.”
