Order ahead meals
Order ahead meals are foods prepared by retailer employees and require some lead time to prepare. Order ahead meals require coordination between retailers and shoppers to ensure that the food is prepared and then delivered in a timely manner. Timely delivery is an important part of a positive customer experience for order ahead meals.
For example, the customer orders an order ahead meal of chicken parmesan, tomato-sauced spaghetti, and sauteed greens for priority delivery. Instacart calculates the handoff time, which is the time when a shopper is expected to reach the food counter. Instacart batches the order at a time that ensures the shopper arrives at the store near the handoff time.
An example process
In the following example, the customer orders an order ahead meal, the retailer provides the earliest time the food can be ready by, and Instacart calculates the handoff time.
- Customer checkouts an order ahead meal. The order ahead meal takes the retailer employee 10 minutes to prepare.
- Customer orders the meal at 11:00pm.
- Retailer sends 11:45pm as the earliest time that the order can be ready for delivery.
- Instacart calculates the ETA as 12:30pm.
- Instacart uses this ETA to calculate the handoff time to be around 12:05.
- Instacart sends the handoff time back to the retailer.
- Retailer subtracts the 10 minute prep time from the 12:05 handoff time and begins to prepare the meal at 11:55pm.
- Instacart batches the order.
- Retailer employee prepares the food.
- Shopper picks up the food at the food counter and delivers it to the customer.