Albertsons Unveils Meal Plan Tool

By Author: Arina Smith
Total Articles: 185
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Albertsons Companies, Inc. (NYSE: ACI) has introduced significant digital enhancements to its Meal Plans and Recipes tool, available on its various grocery apps and websites under banners such as Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, ACME, and Tom Thumb. This tool aims to offer customers culinary inspiration, time-saving solutions, and budget management features. It includes a budget tracker, an extensive library of over 8,000 exclusive recipes, shoppable ingredient lists, and a hands-free cooking mode with a step-by-step timer.

Jill Pavlovich, SVP of Digital Customer Experience for Albertsons Cos, emphasized that this tool empowers home cooks to plan, shop, and prepare delicious recipes without committing to costly meal delivery services. The Meal Plans tool is designed to cater to price-conscious families, allowing them to plan a week's worth of meals based on their budget, and it is offered for free on the grocery app and website.

The Meal Plans tool provides access to thousands of recipes spanning breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, which can be filtered by dietary preferences, food restrictions, ...
... serving size, and the exclusion of specific ingredients. New recipes are regularly added to provide seasonal variety to users.

Key digital enhancements to the Meal Plans tool include:

1. **Budget Tracker:** Customers can set a total weekly budget, the number of meals, and servings before selecting recipes. As recipes are added, the cost of ingredients is deducted from the overall budget, allowing shoppers to track the total meal price and cost per serving.

2. **Cooking Mode:** This feature simplifies meal preparation. Users can advance through recipe steps with a simple hand wave, keeping screens clean while cooking. It also includes a built-in timer to help users stay on track.

3. **Shopping List Integration:** Users can consolidate all the ingredients for their chosen recipes into a "My List" shopping list with a single click. They can also modify the list to include other household essentials and access available deals or digital coupons.

4. **Reducing Food Waste:** The Meal Plans tool is designed to minimize food waste by optimizing ingredient usage across multiple meals. For example, if two recipes call for half an onion, only one onion will be added to the shopping list.

Customers have the option to either pick up their grocery orders at the nearest store or have them delivered within as little as 30 minutes. For in-person shoppers, shopping lists can be sorted by aisle number or product category for a convenient in-store experience.

Albertsons Companies aims to help customers reduce food waste and make meal planning more efficient. The company is committed to supporting communities and, in 2022, contributed over $200 million in food and financial support through programs like Nourishing Neighbors to ensure people have enough to eat.

This update to the Meal Plans and Recipes tool reflects Albertsons Companies' dedication to providing a comprehensive and user-friendly digital experience to its customers, enhancing their meal planning and grocery shopping endeavors.