Over the past two decades, Amazon has quickly become a company that has upended entire industries and it is a particularly staggering achievement since the company started as an online book store. One of the industries that Amazon entered long back but has only recently started to take more seriously is grocery home delivery and that is slowly but surely creating a situation in which consumers are getting far more conditioned to getting their groceries delivered on every week. In such a situation, it becomes increasingly tough for brick and mortar competitors to cater to its customer base.
At the end of the day, it is difficult to adapt to such a sea change overnight, but it seems many of the grocery stores are now coming around to the idea that they would need to deliver groceries home as well if they are to stay in business. In order to compete, companies are now using cold storage far more than they did in the past and that has resulted in a major boost for the cold storage industry. Cold storage allows companies to keep their produce and ship it out as and when required.
Chris Owens, a top executive at temperature controlled warehouse owners Americold, stated that the although many grocery companies were slow to adapt to the changes that were afoot in the industry, they have now embraced cold storage in a big way. He said,
Stores are becoming more focused on offering an expanded variety of fresh food options to shoppers. Consumer habits continue to evolve in the digital age, with many of us now preferring to shop from somewhere other than the store.
Amazon Fresh has proven to be a very tough competitor for the traditional grocery industry and it seems that the companies have now decided to meet the challenge head-on by arming themselves with the tools to compete on a somewhat even keel. Although the cold storage industry has been booming over the past 24 months, it remains to be seen how this new tussle between Amazon and traditional grocery companies works out.
