Watch out food delivery startups – Amazon is coming!
In an effort to gain some new market share in the food delivery space, Amazon announced it will be offering free food delivery to its Prime customers from over 115 restaurants located in San Francisco. The program is called Prime Now Restaurant Delivery and guarantees delivery of the food orders within one hour once the order is placed on the company’s Prime Now app. San Francisco represents the eighth city in which Amazon offers this food delivery service. Other cities where food can be ordered through the Prime Now app include San Diego, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Baltimore and Seattle.
Food delivery startups such as PostMates and Munchery will certainly feel the impact of this announcement in the coming weeks, especially since Amazon is entering the heart of the startup scene. From a cost perspective, Prime Now costs $99 per year, or $8.25 per month and offers the delivery of thousands of different items in 25 cities, not just food. A new subscription to Munchery costs $ 8.95 per month and delivers meals prepared by chefs. It will be interesting to see how this market takes shape, and for how long Amazon will make these food deliveries for free to Prime members, with no extra fees.
Read more on this story here.
Bringing traceability to the palm oil supply chain
Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) is the second largest palm oil plantation company in the world. This week, the company announced its plans to make traceability a top priority. In an effort to bring more awareness to the production process and other operations along the supply chain, the goal to bring 100% traceability back to the plantation by 2020 has been set. GAR aims to have the traceability for the oil it purchases and processes in its own mills finished by 2017. The other independent mills will follow and be completed by 2020.
Significant efforts have already been made on the traceability front as the supplier mapping process was already completed this year for 489 of its mills across Indonesia. The end goal is to encourage more sustainable operations through the improvement of yields and environmental practices. GAR was already involved with a different sustainability initiative in 2011, namely its efforts to separate itself from deforestation, a practice often associated with palm oil production. Now the company is doubling down on sustainability with its newly announced tractability efforts.
Read more here.
Tough week for Apple
For the first time in 13 years, Apple reported a first quarter decline, and for the first time in history, the company also reported a decline in quarterly iPhone sales. Compared to last year’s first quarter, Apple dropped from $58 billion in revenue to $50.6 billion this year. The drop in iPhone sales was 16%, from 61.2 million down to 51.2 million. This news worried investors as the company finished after hours trading down 7.9%. This after hours trading decrease may sound insignificant, but represents a drop of $43 billion in market value.
Tim Cook however remained optimistic during his earnings call, noting the ‘bright future’ ahead for Apple. Of course, the companies supply chain processes were also discussed, and Cook highlighted important investments that are currently being made to enhance supply chain operations. In a separate comment, Cook noted Apple’s contributions to society above and beyond its products and referred to the company’s use of renewable energy and development of technologies to improve recycling as examples.
Read more on Apple’s tough week here.
Have a great weekend!
