Walmart's "Dinner Tonight" Platform Will Kill the Meal Kit Industry | Fast Five Shorts

Walmart is attempting to answer the age old question what's for dinner?

If you didn't get catch that from Chris's like version of the jingle I feel like Chicken tonight.

According to Progressive Grocer, Dinner Tonight, which launched in early June, is a one step platform on Walmart's website and app that aims to be a total meal solution for shoppers.

Customers can simply type in Dinner Tonight, easy dinner, Easy Meals or be routed directly to the landing page.

Dinner Tonight features one click baskets with everything from spaghetti and meatballs to tacos and stir fry as well as a recipe hub, shoppable lists and global meal inspiration.

Customers can also use the platform to shop for hot rotisserie chickens, wings and favorites like berry Chantilly cake to be delivered directly from Walmart's deli and bakery.

Chris, what's the verdict on Walmart's D Dinner Tonight platform?

Chantilly I I actually love this an I don't know if you tried it out but did you try it out yesterday?

I tried it too.

Yeah and it's pretty slick.

Like you preload your delivery time which is kind of cool.

Like I wasn't expecting that to do that.

And then you can one click anything you want from recipes to ready made meals to heat and eat options like it's all available to you.

And I think that's great because it hits on a need state of what do I want to do for dinner?

Because you know, and it's in the moment too, which is long made meal kit options kind of impractical and wasteful at the end of the day because you have to pre order all that stuff in advance.

Then you're like I don't, I don't want chicken Kiev for dinner tonight.

Right.

Like that's just not, not something I'm in the mood for.

So this, this changes that.

And the other point I would make is I could see the way it works.

I could see people using it habitually.

But the thing I love most about it, Ann, is I go back.

It goes back to a prediction I made in 2018 where I said meal kits were going to go the way of the dodo bird and I called them in Forbes, the equivalent of the stylus on the Palm Pilot.

Because an actual grocery store is a meal kit when you think about it, when it's supercharged with technology and technology can just do it better.

So that's what Walmart is doing here.

They're taking the idea and they're making it better and so kudos to them and I love them.

Yet Again, for what I think is a, is a, is a platform with a lot of potential here.

Just depends over how they, how they manipulate it over time.

I think potential is the key word here.

I mean looking at it right now, there's nothing revolutionary about this.

It's, that's the same thing that you see on a lot of sites with the exception of how the they're going through and you're planning your time.

But if you just go to dinner tonight, like yes, there's a recipe hub, yes, there's, you know, there's, you can pick, heat and eat meals.

Like a lot of retailers are doing this.

But I think what is interesting about this is number one, the split speed.

No grocer can match this speed.

And this collection of recipes right now, like Walmart can.

I mean it.

And, and on top of it, which I think is even better, is like when I, what I did yesterday was ordering all of these things plus a few of essentials.

Like my kid needed sunscreen, an extra bottle of sunscreen.

So it's like all of these things that truly make sense to happen in this one moment.

And what I love even more is that I think so Sparky is not even integrated into this yet fully.

Like you have to go to a different place to ask Sparky a question, but it is serving up the content.

So if you went to Walmart and you're like, what's for dinner tonight, Sparky?

It'll pop up.

The key thing here is that not only will that pop up on if you're on Walmart.com searching for it, but when more and more people are going to chatgpt asking the same question, what's for dinner tonight?

Or Walmart will be showing up there, these recipes will be showing up there.

They've done all the right things to connect all the dots here so that you make sure that you're showing up and you're going to pay off that experience tenfold once people realize, oh wow, I can, I can get this to my house in an hour or less.

Hitting on that that needs state that you talked about earlier.

Yeah, I mean I wonder, I wonder if it actually isn't a more budget friendly way to actually do your grocery shopping too.

Like when you're just buying your dinner in the moment every day for what you feel like you and your gonna want to eat and you're paying the fee for Walmart plus but then you get the delivery, you know, at a, at a, you know, reduced rate.

And so like, you know, you're not wasting food anymore either.

So, like, I think this is, this is great for both income stratas which Walmart is killing at.

They're killing it, you know, the traditional customer that they have and then expanding it into people, you know, with the higher income echelons for the reasons that you, you describe.

So, yeah, I think it's great.