iFood embarked on the model farm to table, or from field to table, which takes fruits and vegetables directly from rural producers to consumers’ homes. In May, the app gained a new store, iFood Cestas by Frexco, available to those who live in the city of São Paulo.
Now São Paulo residents can receive products at home coming directly from the farm and selected by partner Frexco (startup specialized in food delivery in nature), which curates what is freshest to create baskets of fruits, spices, and vegetables.
Customers can also order individual items or complement the basket with more fruits, vegetables or other products, such as artisanal coffee, jam, honey and mushrooms. For now, iFood Cestas by Frexco has five stores covering the entire capital of São Paulo. The next step is expansion to other regions of São Paulo.
“Our focus is the quality of the fruits and vegetables we sell on the platform. We are very attentive to the processes of curation, separation and transportation of items, from receiving the food by Frexco to delivery to our customers”, explains Andreza Zacharias, head of Business Development at iFood.
Therefore, the new store was created with great care to bring those consumers who are afraid of purchasing fruit and vegetable items online to the app. “We saw that many people did not change the habit of buying fruits and vegetables from offline for the online for fear of receiving a green, stale or crushed product”, says Andreza.
Take special care with food
To face the challenge of improving the delivery of fresh items, iFood sought a specialized partner: Frexco, which already had experience in taking agricultural production from the farm to people's homes.
Together, iFood and Frexco developed a quality control process just for this front and created reinforced boxes for transporting fresh food, which was also customized — the baskets are delivered by small vans or scooters equipped with a special trunk, as they do not fit in the bags of delivery partners.
“Frexco first curates the items: if one is ugly, they send another in the same category, in an exchange that is agreed with the customers”, explains Andreza. “Before sending the baskets to those who requested them, iFood carries out a final inspection to ensure that everything is ok.”
How does the store work?
Those who live in São Paulo can select iFood Cestas by Frexco in the Markets tab of the iFood app. In this area, customers have two options: they can make their own basket with their favorite products or choose between different types of basket, such as fruit or spice baskets (both with six units) or a complete basket, with fruits and vegetables. —and which can be small, medium or large. In the second case, you can also add other foods to the basket.
Orders are closed daily at 6pm, from then on, order separation and assembly begins. The next day, in the morning, the baskets are sent to customers' homes. . All this care has already paid off, says Andreza. “Today, around 50%dh people who order the basket are repeat customers, that is, they are creating the habit of buying fruits and vegetables online.”
Consumer satisfaction also improved, increasing the NPS in the delivery of fruits and vegetables made by iFood. “Customers praise it saying it looks like they bought it at the fair. That’s the feeling we want to achieve”, says Andreza.
