Thesis

The food industry is evolving rapidly, and in order for retailers, startups, small businesses, retailers, and investors to stay relevant, it is important to understand how these evolutions are taking place, and why.

Conceptual thesis: The faster, more innovative, and more efficient the uses of technology become, the more information and speed consumers will expect from fulfillment centers, retailers, and bigger conglomerates.

Application:

Innovation in food shipping, fulfillment, and processing software and distribution is a subcategory within the food sector that serves to become more valuable to supply chain companies, especially larger businesses. Secondly, companies reinventing how food is created serve to benefit from middle and upper class consumer's shift in their desire of quality in nutrition. Along this latter trend are companies working to supplant old brands with healthier alternatives, but that process of change will take much longer than the prior two, as brand loyalty and more importantly, trust, will still likely remain within the current and next generation of human beings.

On the flip side, the meal kit and meal kit delivery space is not a very dynamic sector standalone. By themselves, meal kits do not provide a huge amount of value added that is brand new and exciting to consumers. Of course, it benefits some, but from a contrarian perspective, meal kits are what they are: boxes with food inside. Especially when uncooked, the value add from the organization is not exponential in many ways. The most these types of companies can do is innovate laterally, partnering with food suppliers to make a profit from what they offer customers, and striking wholesale deals with clients through whom they can offer their products.

Thus, the previous two subcategories within the market map of distribution and supply chain software, and food substitutes are new and changing ideas, and ideas that can be innovated upon as well. In the following deck, I will focus on the food substitute category.