Agency: 360i | Market: USA
Client: Kroger

Of all the food produced in the US, 40% is thrown away; a troubling statistic when many Americans are short of food. We worked with US food retailer Kroger to encourage more sustainable food behaviours among consumers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, US grocery sales increased 30%, with more Americans cooking at home than ever before. However, our social listening indicated that people need more recipe inspiration as they venture deeper into their larders.

We realised that even experienced cooks can have difficulty using all of their available food, resulting in a combination of leftover ingredients that they don’t know how to use.

We set out to create a customer-friendly, ecommerce-centric solution to reduce food waste. The result was Chefbot, a first-of-itskind AI tool that helps people to make the most of the food ingredients they already have, by finding recipes that use those ingredients.

Consumers take a photo of their available ingredients and tweet it to @KrogerChefbot. The AI tool recognises these items from its database of 2,000+ ingredients and responds with a suitable meal from Kroger’s 20,000+ shoppable recipes.

We supported Chefbot’s launch with a full marketing ecosystem, creating a Chefbot animated character who featured in our howto videos and social content. Our launch also included influencer partnerships with famous foodies, showing how easy Chefbot is to use, and inspiring consumers to reduce their food waste.

By helping to use leftover food, Chefbot can save the average American family an estimated $1,500 and 250lbs of food per year. Chefbot is still going strong, getting smarter and more helpful with every ingredient it sees.

Chefbot has proved to be Kroger’s most successful social campaign ever, generating the most conversation in its 137-year history and engaging customers on sustainable food behaviours.