Expanding Our Community of Household Heroes: A Thank You from Apoorva Mehta, Instacart CEO

Instacart today announced plans to bring on an additional 300,000 full-service shoppers across North America over the next 3 months to meet the increasing customer demand for online grocery delivery and pickup in the U.S. and Canada.

Instacart Founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta shared the news with the Instacart shopper community today — you can read his message below and learn more here.

To our valued shopper community,

I want to share my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for the hard work that you’re doing to support communities throughout North America during this uncertain time. The last few weeks have been the busiest in Instacart’s history, and we’ve been proud to serve as an essential service for you and the millions of customers relying on you to deliver their groceries and household goods. Our teams are working around the clock to safely serve all members of our community, and we’re incredibly grateful for Instacart shoppers like you who have stepped up as household heroes during this time.

Since day one, our goal at Instacart has been to ensure customers get their groceries delivered reliably, to lift up our retail partners, and to provide flexible earnings opportunities for shoppers. Today, the role we play and the responsibility we have takes on an entirely new meaning. I want to take a few moments to share how we’re prioritizing the health and safety of the Instacart shopper community.

First, we have been closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation and are adhering to recommendations from public health officials to ensure we’re operating safely. The health and safety of our entire community remains our first priority. That’s why we worked closely with a panel of health, food safety, and disease control experts to develop a comprehensive set of shopper health and safety guidelines to provide you with the resources and information you need to take appropriate preventative actions and precautionary food handling measures. We’ve also been working closely with our local teams to provide cleaning products in-store and have secured health and safety supplies, which we’ll be distributing to shoppers across North America in the days and weeks ahead.

We are also offering additional support for shoppers who may be affected by COVID-19. All in-store shoppers nationwide now have access to sick pay, an accrued benefit that can be used as paid time off if you’re absent from work due to illness or injury. Additionally, any full-service or in-store shopper can receive up to 14 days of extended pay if you’re diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in individual mandatory isolation or quarantine.

Our teams have also been working to improve your shopping experience to ensure you have the tools and resources you need during this busy time. We’ve expanded ratings forgiveness, made it easier for you to cancel batches, and launched Mobile Checkout so you can quickly pay at the register with a tap of your phone. We’ve also rolled out a new Leave at My Door Delivery feature nationwide, making it easier for shoppers and customers to safely deliver and receive their orders. With the increased order volume we’re seeing, we know shopper Care wait times have also been longer than normal. We’re working to increase staffing and implement new technology and processes so you get the support you need while shopping for customers. We’re moving fast as a team to innovate on our shopper products and always appreciate your feedback along the way — you can read about the latest changes we’ve made here on our shopper blog.

Today, we have more shoppers on the Instacart platform than ever before. Given the continued customer demand we expect over the coming months, we’ll be bringing on an additional 300,000 full-service shoppers to support cities nationwide. As more people look for immediate, flexible earnings opportunities during this time, we hope that Instacart can be an additional source of income for those looking to earn while also delivering for the communities in which they live.

We’re incredibly grateful for all the work that each of you do every single day — thank you for your continued dedication.

Apoorva

Instacart

Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.