“Shoppable recipes”: Walmart and Buzzfeed offer one-click shopping lists based on cooking videos

20 Aug 2019 --- US multinational retail corporation Walmart and media platform BuzzFeed’s “Tasty” division have partnered to offer consumers “shoppable recipes.” The retailer invites shoppers to add the entire ingredient list from items on a menu of 4,000 Tasty cooking videos directly to their Walmart Online Grocery carts with one click. From there, they can place their order for pickup or have the groceries delivered to their homes from stores across the US.

“Finding that perfect recipe, creating a grocery list and finally getting to the store can keep any chef out of the kitchen,” says Janey Whiteside, Chief Customer Officer of Walmart. “We’re excited to create a fun solution that feeds customers appetites to put time back in their busy schedules.”

The Tasty app offers geo-specific capabilities to map a recipe’s ingredients to the products available at the closest Walmart location. The new partnership has developed a digital grocery experience for Tasty iOS app users, allowing quick access to ingredients for more than 4,000 recipes. From the Tasty app, users are directed to the Walmart Grocery app or Walmart’s online shopping platform, where they can view what is in their cart, purchase the ingredients and schedule their groceries for either curbside pickup at a local Walmart or at-home delivery. Orders can be picked up or delivered within the same day. 

The app offers geo-specific capabilities to map a recipe’s ingredients to the products available at the closest Walmart location. Picky eaters are also accommodated, as a feature enables customers to swap items within the Tasty app based on their preferences – be it price, brand, quantity, organic or other dietary preferences.

“From watching a mesmerizing Tasty video to cooking it in your own kitchen, the missing link is buying the ingredients. More than two-thirds of our audience have made a Tasty recipe and 90 percent of American live within ten miles of a Walmart store, so we’re excited to build upon our partnership with Walmart and provide a new feature that will solve the pain point of grocery shopping and make it even easier for our audience to cook Tasty recipes,” says Ben Kaufman, BuzzFeed’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Later this year, Walmart is also launching Tasty-branded licensed products within the Celebrations, Dry Grocery, Deli and Frozen Meats departments, among others.

Shoppable recipes is powered by the Northfork platform, which integrates Walmart’s website and app with Tasty’s recipe content. This feature is the first of many upgrades to the Tasty app that will continue to deepen Tasty’s partnership with Walmart, the brands state.

Convenience in shopping is gaining popularity among time-starved consumers this year, alongside a surge in adventurous taste trends. The rise in healthy meal kit services and nutritious on-the-go dishes is enjoying a proliferation of NPD. As such, bridging convenience with new flavor discoveries on a digital platform is notably attractive for companies targeting trend-conscious customers.

By Benjamin Ferrer