Dive Brief:
- Food Rocket, a rapid grocery delivery service backed by Circle K parent company Alimentation Couche-Tard, ceased operations this month, according to an emailed press release.
- Palo Alto, California-based Food Rocket reported that a downturn in the capital markets rendered it unable to raise additional funding to stay open and it couldn’t get bridge funding from Couche-Tard.
- The company, which had sought to provide delivery in around 10 minutes in several metro areas, had added meal delivery services in Chicago and expanded operations into North Carolina in November 2022. But in February, the company announced it was pulling out of its very first delivery area in San Francisco to focus on North Carolina.
Dive Insight:
Food Rocket’s North Carolina delivery operations had been based at two of Circle K stores, making those operations significantly cheaper to operate, according to the February press release. But despite what the company called “overall profitability,” the savings were not enough, and Food Rocket joined the list of ultrafast delivery companies that have had to pull out of U.S. markets.
Companies like Buyk, Fridge No More and 1520 have all already closed down. Fellow delivery firm Jokr exited the U.S. to focus on Latin America in June of 2022, while GoPuff has faced several rounds of job cuts.
“We believe that the rapid delivery industry has disrupted the retail market and changed consumer behaviors,” said Vitaly Alexandrov, CEO and founder of Food Rocket, in Thursday’s press release. “Unfortunately, current economic conditions reshuffled the tech market and presented significant challenges in the venture capital market.”
April 2022 funding from Couche-Tard was expected to help Food Rocket expand into other countries, according to a TechCrunch article. However, those plans never materialized.
