Skip Express Lane’s mission

Skip Express Lane’s sustainable mission

VP Steve Lee on the company’s ambition to build a better grocery delivery service By David Brown

WhIle many Canadians came to know SkipTheDishes as one of the more popular restaurant delivery apps during the pandemic, the company expanded its business late last year to include grocery delivery.

Skip Express Lane offers between 1,500 and 2,000 grocery products sourced from a network of microfulfilment centres and delivered in 25 minutes or less. It’s what Skip Express Lane vice-president Steve Lee calls “instant gratification delivery.”

Right now, there are 11 Skip Express Lane locations across eight cities in four provinces. By the end of the summer the company plans to have 38 microfulfilment centres, which will service about 70% of addressable customers. That convenience and extensive selection makes Skip Express Lane different than the competition, says Lee. But, it was also built with another key differentiator: a more sustainable model.

Canadian Grocer recently spoke with Lee about how, and why, Skip has built a more environmentally-friendly option for Canadian grocery shoppers.

What makes Skip Express Lane a more sustainable grocery delivery model?

It’s really attributed to the efficiencies that we get from our real estate … and how we move products. If you think about traditional grocery, it generally requires a larger footprint because the customerfacing storefront requires high-energy consumption to display and sell the product. For example, you generally need to ensure customers can reach for products, so the maximum height you could display would be about six to seven feet. But in our environment of microfulfilment, we actually work with cubic volumes instead of square feet…we generally require only about one square foot per SKU, with the right height. Every inch of the space is used to maximum efficiency, which brings down the overall energy consumption for the site.

So it’s about using the space vertically?

warehouses for products to be stored and then transported by vehicles to the sales floor. It’s similar to IKEA where the sales floor is their warehouse floor, and with this, we don’t have to put vehicles on the road from site to site.

What can you tell me about packaging?

We’re looking into fully biodegradable and compostable when it comes to some packaging; [for instance] the produce bags … we don’t even want that to go to recycling. Whether recyclable or not, I just don’t like creating waste. [We want] a produce bag that’s compostable.

The beauty of quick commerce is I don’t need elaborate packaging to sell the product, and the benefit of delivering something in 15 to 20 minutes is that I don’t need to have extensive Styrofoam to protect the product from cold or hot because we get there so fast.

Do you know if customers will be more apt to shop with you because of these things?

I think today’s generation is more cognizant about the environment, and I firmly believe the brand they choose has to resonate with the values they have. I think it’s more than just providing product. I think it’s a social responsibility that every retailer has to preserve the planet, but at the same time, I firmly believe it is a competitive advantage.

You used the term “instant gratification.” Isn’t that inherently bad for the environment? Isn’t having three or four deliveries a week worse than customers making one trip to the store per week?

When we look at consumer behaviours in terms of how this type of service is used, it often becomes complementary to their existing grocery schedule. Ideally, we’d be able to make a single trip to the grocery store and be done for the week, but I think we’ve all needed to grab a few extra things beyond that.

Skip Express Lane then becomes a more efficient choice and more environmentally friendly when you compare it to someone needing to visit a store, or multiple stores, a few additional times a week. It also ensures that people aren’t idling in their cars waiting for their groceries if they choose a “pick-up” option.

We also like to look at our impact on the environment holistically and understand how the other eco-conscious aspects of Skip Express Lane compare to a traditional grocery store, so delivery itself is just one piece of a much larger picture.

How important was this to you personally to make sure this was the model you were working with?

I’ve always had a keen interest in sustainability and how we do business, because we have one chance to make it right for the planet. But it really changed a lot when I started having kids.

I want to make sure that I—as a parent—actually leave behind a planet that they could preserve and enjoy as much as I did.