Instacart Health’s VP & GM Sarah Mastrorocco shares how technology is personalizing and democratizing food choices.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Sarah Mastrorocco, VP & GM of Instacart Health at Instacart, to discuss how the company is merging technology with public health. From personalized AI-powered grocery experiences to nutrition stipends for expectant mothers, Sarah explains how Instacart is reimagining access to nutritious food for millions across the U.S.
About Instacart
Instacart, the leading grocery technology company in North America, works with grocers and retailers to transform how people shop. The company partners with more than 1,500 national, regional, and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 85,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace. Instacart makes it possible for millions of people to get the groceries they need from the retailers they love, and for approximately 600,000 Instacart shoppers to earn by picking, packing and delivering orders on their own flexible schedule. The Instacart Platform offers retailers a suite of enterprise-grade technology products and services to power their e-commerce experiences, fulfill orders, digitize brick-and-mortar stores, provide advertising services, and glean insights. With Instacart Ads, thousands of CPG brands – from category leaders to emerging brands – partner with the company to connect directly with consumers online, right at the point of purchase. With Instacart Health, the company is providing tools to increase nutrition security, make healthy choices easier for consumers, and expand the role that food can play in improving health outcomes.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I have Sarah Mastrorocco on the line, and she’s VP and GM of.
Instacart Health and this interview is part of , our Milken global conference series where we cover people that were attendees, that were on panels, that were speakers at the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills. And first thing, first Sarah, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
So I understand. Well, first off, I, I’m, I’m pumped to get to know more about Instacart Health and the work that you’re doing over there and really transforming the role of nutrition and healthcare, what that looks like and what that means to Instacart Health. But before we get into that I understand you were run a panel, I believe, and you spoke at the, at the Milken conference.
Maybe start with telling us a little bit more about that in your experience. Yes, I was privileged to attend Milken this year. It was a great experience. Was on a panel called Transforming Food for a Healthier Future, led by Holly Isha. Really great group bringing different perspectives from, you know Alice Chen from INE talking about, you know, chief medical officers perspective from Aaron Weiss, the president of Hy-Vee, a retail background.
Me coming from a technology online grocery background and. Ashley Tri Dulce, also who founded Farm Back rx, which is a direct to consumer food engagement platform. Just kind of showing it was really great to be on stage with four people, four unique perspectives, but all with the same mission of, of using food and leveraging food and the power of food to improve health outcomes, lower cost of care, so, mm-hmm.
It was a great experience. Definitely recommend it to anyone who’s able to attend the global conference. Now have you, have you been to the conference before or was this a first time visit? I have not. This was my first time. Ooh. I love talking to newbies. I say that nicely. And what, what was your favorite part of the conference?
I mean, I, I’ve been here now three years or four years now. Three or four, I can’t remember, but I’m always like a kid in a candy store here. I’m running from panel to panel or thing to thing, and I probably should be doing more interviews and more work, but I get distracted. So what was your favorite part of the concept?
I mean, it was just, it was just so much energy. I was really impressed by the amount of energy, but really just the diversity of. Leaders, like global leaders, right? I mean mm-hmm. When I was in the prep room preparing for the healthy future, Tony Blair was at the table beside me, right? Yeah. So I was pretty blown away, like, wow, like all the different types of leaders, like world leaders, business leaders, you know, thought leaders, plenty of entertainment too.
I think, of course, Jason Sudeikis on stage, but. Tony Blair was my biggest star sighting, I would say. Aw, man, that’s, that’s awesome. I love this story. That’s great. Well, let’s switch, switching it up a bit here Instacart Health for, before we get into that, like have you been, have you been working in food and and health side of things prior?
Like where’d that start for you in general? Yeah, I, I have always loved food and been part of grocery. I’ve been at Instacart mm-hmm. Since there were 30 people joined in. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I joined in 2014. That’s amazing. Was a, you know, found a, honestly found a small company on a job board and I was in San Francisco thinking about getting involved in technology, but the intersection with food was a passion of mine.
So it’s been over 11 years at Instacart. Worn many hats from really forming our retail partnerships first working on our catalog and then I led pickup during COVID. So scaling our, our curbside pickup, which we have. Over 8,000 stores today that offer curbside pickup. Mm-hmm. Which is economical for people versus delivery.
So we’re able to grow that and then launch Instacart Health in 2022. So happy to, you know, I’ve been working on that for several reels and excited to tell you more about it today. What do you think, what do you think makes these launches so successful for Instacart? Like what do you think is one of the differentiators that’s just made to, you know, that’s led, led to some of its success because others have tried, but Instacart really is a leader.
Like what, what do you think that some of that magic is? Since I, since you’ve been there, since there were, you know, 30 employees or so? It’s a great question. I. Mimi as a backbone for your listeners. And you know, if you aren’t familiar with Instacart, hopefully you are with a leading grocery technology company in North America.
We partner with 1800 retailers across more than a hundred thousand local stores. And because of that and our 600,000 person shopper network, we reach. Over 98% of US households today. Amazing. Amazing. I didn’t realize it was that, that, that big. I mean, I knew well, the company is big. I know I’ve used it, but I didn’t realize everybody else knew.
No. And I think the, the way we’ve always operated is been in a, we’ve been a retail enablement company. So we really know who we are, that our role is in technology and access. And in 2022 we, we realized, and really coming out of COVID too, that the online grocery isn’t just, you know, isn’t a convenience, it isn’t a luxury.
It can be a necessity for many and a really a lifeline. So we also deliver, and I’ll say like, you know, 98% of US households, but also 95% of residents are households living in food deserts. So we’re, we’re providing full service grocery options to people who don’t live near a grocery store who may be home bound.
And I think, you know, Instacart Health has been able to resonate so deeply and, and take off, you know, similar to pickup and our retail grocery experiences because we’re leveraging our strengths and being crisp about, you know, what we wanna accomplish and, mm-hmm. So Instacart Health, if I’m, if I’m turning that into Incar Health Yeah, we’re really focused on three areas.
So my job is using Incar platform. For health and, and what that means. And, and we, we have not wavered since, you know, day one is increasing nutrition security. So our first pillar is physical and financial access to nutritious foods. We have a real role to play there. Mm-hmm. Second is, you know, once you have that, how do you make healthy, more informed choices?
Easy and online shopping can really do that. And then our third pillar is combining the two. Food, bringing food as medicine and nutrition interventions online by combining access and information. Mm-hmm. And so all using the Instacart platform. So through Instret Health, we’re using our products, platform partners and policies to get more nutritious food into more homes.
And I’d say that, you know, we will talk more about that, but the, the basis of Instacart Health too is we helped bring EBT Snap, so Supplemental Nutrition, federal Assistance online starting in 2020. And we really saw that there was a real need for it. And we, we have tons of. Loyal EBT SNAP customers and what they call that we solve for time and transportation.
Mm-hmm. But also stigma and budgeting too. So there’s a lot of things that online can solve for people with low access to food. Mm-hmm. And that, you know, we’ve been continuing to build on that. With consumer tools that I’ll talk about too, and then also with our healthcare organization partnerships as well.
Yeah. Let, let’s get into that part of it. So Instacart Health, like how are you leveraging technology to help consumers to, to make you know, better choices? Yeah, great question. We are, I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s lots, lots of great examples. I would say at the heart of our programs is our consumer platform that leverages.
Of technology, including generative AI to make healthy choices. And when, when someone comes to Instacart, there’s no Instacart Health, it’s Instacart. You know, you Adam, coming to the platform. We want you to find the right foods, right? Let’s talk about the use case. How do we find the right foods that meet, that meet your unique dietary and lifestyle preferences, which could be different than mine.
Or or someone else in your household, right? Yeah. Like really it can be, it can be overwhelming thinking about going into a grocery store or shopping online and you’re managing a chronic condition, or you’re, you know, working in a, with a multi-generational household with diverse preferences and needs.
And what we found that even according to a recent study, that food is medicine too, that Tufts put out. It’s like after cost. Mm-hmm. The most common reported hurdles to eating healthy include a lack of healthy options. Then not knowing what foods are considered healthy, right? Mm-hmm. So it’s the access and then, and then food.
So we think about, okay, how come, how can Instacart help? What’s our role? We’ve been rolling out more and more technology to make that information accessible too, so, mm-hmm. I think the best really recent example is we rolled out. Something called Smart Shop and it’s AI powered personalized foundation for nutrition.
So you today can go on Instacart. We all, you know, anyone can go on Instacart and use their current profile or create a new profile. Mm-hmm. And we, you have 17 million unique items with a data set of millions of grocery shopping. It just really off you can choose basically. Some some key things that you might want us to surface to you more than others.
Say you wanna be you know, gluten free, or say that you have low sodium and we’re gonna use that. We use machine learning to understand your habits and your preferences and what you’ve told us and really create a personalized store. Maybe it’s, you know, personalized aisle for you based on your vegan diet.
Mm-hmm. Or it can be a baby and pet too. It doesn’t just have to be nutrition. Yeah. It really is personalizing the store to save you time and give you confidence. So we have smart shop preferences. Mm-hmm. Which are directly like in the settings of your profile. And it has 14 common dietary preferences and we’ll continue to build on that.
But it’s gluten-free, lactose free, low sodium. We also have 30 different tags. So there’s, there’s 14 different in my profile, but then when you’re shopping, there’s, there’s 30 different tags that you can search on or filter on. And that could be high protein or preservative free. There’s so much more, you know, I’m sure if you’ve seen, there’s so much more of a focus on what’s in our food, and we really wanna play a role to help people, give them confidence of what is or is not in their food that they’re buying.
And online can be a really great tool for that. Quickly filter items that meet your needs. And so we’re excited about that from a consumer standpoint. Anybody, and then what we’re doing also. We’re combining that with an access play for healthcare organizations, and we’ve developed our own, basically filtered spend or credit system on Instacart that we call fresh funds.
And fresh is meant to describe the, the type of payment that it’s new and fresh, but it could be for fresh produce, which doesn’t have to be. So we partner with, for example, with Molina of Michigan decided to do a maternal health program and they’re giving moms. Identify with high risk pregnancy, a hundred dollars a month to spend on Instacart for, you know, for healthy foods for them for nine months, and then Instacart membership for 18 months.
And that’s an example of, you know identifying maybe at-risk people that could use access to nutritious foods. And that stipend only works on foods that they, that the, the health that the Melina Healthcare mission have chosen can to drive healthy behaviors. And then, you know, how can we support this mom?
During her pregnancy using fresh buttons. And then when she’s on Instacart, she has all the access to all the tools that everyone else does. Mm-hmm. You know, to be able to make healthy choices based on her preferences and her needs. Yeah, it’s great. It’s a great story. And, and as I look at the, even just the opportunity for nutrition programs in healthcare and what that can look like.
And I look at just what Instacart’s doing, how this is all intertwined. I think it’s exciting. And what’s interesting to me, I’ll speak for myself like mm-hmm. Like the grocery store experience versus, you know, doing Instacart or some of these other, I’m, I don’t like going in the grocery store as much.
I don’t know what happened to me there. It. So, but okay. On the other side of things though, I’m guilty of this now, when I do go, it is kind of sometimes like a guilty pleasure ’cause I go so few times it’s like, it’s like I’m actually going shopping, if that makes sense. I know that sounds really, I don’t know if you know, you know, that’s okay.
We. Plenty of people like to do both. I think it is hard. I, I personally, I have a, a busy family and I think it really helps me be healthier to shop online. There’s less out for sure. I’m not getting the random, like it is harder for them to get me. I feel like when I leave and I go myself than I’m like, oh, they got me, they got me on those inner aisles every time.
I know, I, I think for me it’s also like, do I have food in the house? Right? Do I need to run out and get something fast, or can I pack lunches? For sure. I, I got it delivered last night to pack, you know, we ran out of some, some bagels for their lunches. I got a watermelon, which is a good summer. Are you, you like VIP at Instacart?
I feel like they know, like, you got a special account. There you go. I, I said it, I said it, Sarah, you gotta have a special tag. They’re like, VIP makes your. Even though my order has always come, well, I just feel like you got another, there’s a secret code to Instacart. I know it. And you’re part of it. We, well, I think actually we’re the opposite.
I think every employee really scrutinizes their service and we have a whole feedback channel to say exactly like how it could be better or what could, what could go wrong and how do we fix it. So I think that’s probably one of the keys back to your questions on what is the key to our success. Yeah.
Our employees, you know, are, are testing the new products, are obsessed with the quality, right? What could have gone wrong? How did we fix it? It’s amazing, fascinated to see all the late night discussions or channels of this happened to my order, you know? Yeah. But we’re glad, I’m glad to hear you had a good experience.
We always love it, but I always say feedback is a gift, and so if, if you do have some improvement ideas or a bad experience, let me know. Love it. Last thing, Sarah, if somebody’s listener watching this and they want to, you know, follow the Instacart story or learn more if they don’t already know about it how do they do that?
Yeah, I think any if intro.com/health is gonna tell you more you know, look for us, look for our, that should lead you to our press page too. And you know, it’s a short, short podcast. I didn’t get to tell you more, but we have a lot. Going on with healthcare organizations, health plans you know, health systems, anybody that wants to really focus on a scaled food as medicine or nutrition intervention, we have great outcomes data showing that we, you know, can improve diabetes management, reduce blood pressure and sustained weight loss and really drive engagement.
So, I guess my, to answer your question in a more roundabout way. You’ll find it that instacart.com/health, there’s, you know, a form you can fill out to reach out. But also plenty of things more online that you can read about our success stories, what’s going on in the market. And, you know, we are, we are here to support any consumer.
I would say if you’re interested in health tools and your consumer, just go to Instacart and play around. You know, set your health preferences browse. But if you’re a healthcare organization that wants to improve health outcomes, lower cost of care across your population, we have a lot of opportunities as well.
So we are, we are very, we appreciate your time, right. And, and learning and, and, and talking to me and learning more about Inre Health. And for your listeners, we would love to collaborate and innovate. We work with, you know, major organizations. We work on research and we just wanna help everybody across America, right, get access to healthy groceries and whatever they would like right to their door.
Wonderful. And for everybody listening, just so you know, of course, we’ll put some links in the show notes so you can just click on ’em and head right on over and check out Instacart and Instacart Health. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet.
Hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Sarah, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you, Adam.
Have a great day. Take care.
