Issue #41: Wonder Continues Its Quest To Become The Food Super App

In Issue #26, I wrote extensively about Wonder, the food eCommerce app founded by Marc Lore, who also founded Jet.com. The reason I wrote about them was they had just acquired Grubhub, the food delivery app. Well, the acquisitions didn’t stop there, as Wonder just acquired Tastemade, a food media company with its 160 million social media followers and 13 million monthly streaming viewers. This marks the 4th large acquisition of Wonder since its founding. Before we dive into it further, I wanted to share what I previously wrote on Wonder and its acquisitions as some context.

Wonder has primarily focused on an acquisition strategy to grow its business lines. These acquisitions allowed them to expand into new areas of food delivery and were mostly of distressed assets. Here is more on the acquisitions:

• Blue Apron (November 2023) - NYC-based meal kit subscription, Wonder acquired for ~$100M, the physical assets (Fulfillment Centers) were not included as those were already sold to food manufacturer FreshRealm (who Wonder partners with to produce its food), the sale was mostly customer list and active subscribers

• Relay (April 2024) - NYC-based delivery service that does delivery for restaurants, allows for Wonder to reduce delivery costs by having its own driver force that is also doing delivery for other places

• Grubhub (November 2024) - A food delivery marketplace, US subsidiary for the Dutch food marketplace Just Eat, owns Seamless, previously had a partnership with Amazon to give Amazon Prime members free Grubhub+ membership, plus look at the NYC market share below (over 20% of NYC market)

• Tastemade (March 2025) - Food media company with 160 million social media followers and 13 million monthly streaming viewers, similar to Wonder also partners with Celebrity Chefs to create content. The plan is to create a media network to create content around Wonder’s brands as well as a platform for more advertising revenue.

Now with all these different pieces, you may be wondering Lore’s vision of how to tie them all together. Wonder wants to be the preeminent food solution for customers in NYC/tri-state area (and then the rest of the country). Let’s call it a food delivery super app. At the top of the funnel is Grubhub/Seamless, the marketplace that brings people in, and the new acquisition Tastemade, which creates content. The plan with Tastemade is to leverage its content creation to make stories and social around the brands or meals, especially in the case of Blue Apron. Then, depending if you want to eat out or cook yourself, you order Wonder for food delivery and Blue Apron for meal kits. Finally, Relay delivery is the last-mile fulfillment solution to get the product to you. Here is a pretty graphic to summarize it all:

In a world of AI, quality content is key and will help brands differentiate while rising to the top. It makes a ton of sense why Wonder went to acquire Tastemade, given not only the quality content it produces but also the similar focus on celebrity chefs, like Wonder does. This will definitely help make Wonder a stronger company. But at what cost? Wonder has spent a ton of money already, with limited locations. I love the fact that it is reaching full Product Market Fit before blitz-scaling, but is the market big enough for the product it is offering. Time will certainly tell, but Wonder is certainly one of the most exciting growth stories in retail right now. Grocery partnership next?

Pepsi Purchases Poppi?

After rumors have been swirling for a while, this week it became semi-official, Pepsi is nearing a deal to purchase better for you soda brand Poppi for $1.5B. Interestingly, this is a lower valuation than Poppi’s main competitor, Ollipop, received when it raised funds recently. Ollipop was valued at close to $1.9B. Valuation aside, this acquisition makes a lot of sense for both parties. Poppi has been spending a lot to grow, which has worked, but that can only take you so far. Pepsi is trying to diversify its portfolio beyond traditional snacks into more better for you products. Recently in October, Pepsi announced the purchase of Siete Foods a better for you snacking company. Furthermore, Pepsi has two main business lines: Beverages and Snacks. The Snacks better for you portion is accounted for now that they have Siete. However, something is needed on the Beverages front. It is just a matter of time before Pepsi acquires something in the better for you beverage space. Coke just tried to launch a dupe and it has not been going well so far. It will be something to watch as this year unfolds. Is CPG M&A back?

RIP Dimes Square

For those unaware of the moniker, over the past couple of years, a little section of the Lower East Side/Chinatown has been renamed Dimes Square, as an ode to Times Square and the restaurant in Dimes Square, “Dimes”. I have spent a lot of time over the years as it is where my favorite NYC bakery Mel used to be located. In addition to the best bakery in NYC, part of what made it special was the restaurant retail in the area. As part of the outdoor dining program in NYC, given that the area is not super high traffic, restaurants were given extra outdoor dining seats, sometimes taking up as much as the entire road. These additional seats made it a hub for retail and community, getting people out and about. Retail was certainly not dead in the area. However, as part of the roll back of outdoor dining last year, all the seating was removed. Recently, it was announced that it would not be coming back, which is super unfortunate. A once bustling area is no longer that and shows how easy it is to make retailers thrive/struggle.

• Summary: Tatte is a bakery and cafe serving upscale food at scale. The menu features everything from beverages to pastries to full food. From its farmer’s market roots, it now has scaled across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. You can see that aesthetic and ideals remain.

• My Take: While Tatte is bigger than the startups in this section, I think it has such a high potential that is untapped I think it is worth it. The lead investor in this company is the founder of Panera and valued it so much that when he left Panera he made sure to keep the Tatte assets as part of his exit package. I think there is a huge opportunity for someone to dominate the premium bakery/cafe space and Tatte is on its way to being the leader.

• Founder(s): Tzurit Or, Ron Shaich

• Funding: Undisclosed amount from Act III Holdings

• Number of Locations: 44 Locations across Boston and DC metro areas

• Social Media Following: 172K on Instagram

Additional Links:

1. Ulta loses market share for the first time in years (read more here)

2. Lunchbox, a restaurant technology startup, announces a new CEO (read more here)

3. How Olo plans on capturing the full restaurant economy by gathering data in untapped areas (read more here)

4. Fossil is trying to cut costs via layoffs and store closures (read more here)

5. Dollar General is closing stores under its banner and the Popshelf banner (read more here)

6. Casey’s is doubling down on food innovation as a growth channel after seeing initial success (read more here)

7. Amazon is merging the Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh corporate teams (read more here)

8. Kohl’s no longer accepts Amazon returns at some locations (read more here)

9. Qdoba has almost surpassed 500 locations and is planning to surpass 1,500 locations (read more here)

10. Brian Niccol provides an update on how Starbucks is doing in the 6 months since he took over (read more here)

Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Have an idea or want to chat? Respond to this email.

Is the email not reaching your inbox? Try this trick.