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Left: Lake Norman area resident Katie Hotze used her MBA and experience working in digital marketing to create a meal-planning software for small to mid-sized grocery stores.

Right: Hotze worked with UNC Charlotte’s Ventureprise program to fully develop resources necessary for her company Grocery Shopii.

Ingredients The Right

by Karel Bond Lucander photography by Lisa Crates

An avid meal planner, Katie Hotze would rip recipes out of “Rachael Ray” magazine, write an ingredient list, shop, and cook after work. She had that process perfected until her family grew (with two kids, Maggie, now 11, and Brett, now 7). With less flexibility and pressed for time, she stopped meal planning.

To remedy that, Hotze—who has an MBA and 20 years as a digital marketing executive—began working on a meal-planning software. She remembers the “aha moment” for Grocery Shopii.

“I was driving out of the Peninsula when it clicked,” she says. “I drove to Starbucks and spent four hours drawing squares, pulling screenshots of recipes, and my next step was selling it to friends.”

Katie Hotze creates meal planning software for grocery stores

Top: Hotze recently appeared on the Amazon TV show “Unicorn Hunters” to pitch her company to a panel of seven celebrity investors. Bottom: Hotze at the Davidson Cotton Mill, headquarters for Grocery Shopii.

A few months later, Hotze was laid off from her corporate job. With a homemade prototype and some capital from her severance pay and investors, she spent the next two years developing and incubating her software.

working witH unc cHarlotte’s venturePrise

With the help of UNC Charlotte’s Ventureprise, Grocery Shopii evolved and was ready to launch in 2019.

“Ventureprise gave me resources and reshaped what we were doing,” the CEO and company founder says. She received valuable input to improve Grocery Shopii and even met her future Chief Technology Officer, Mike Johnson, there. Now Hotze, who lives in Davidson and has her business headquartered in the Davidson Cotton Mill, employs 16 people, including combat veterans, a military spouse and Davidson College students or recent grads.

designed For small grocers

Grocery Shopii is a meal-planning and shoppable recipe software designed for small to mid-sized grocery stores, which don’t usually have the resources to create such software. Grocery Shopii offers their customers a similar or better online shopping tool than the industry giants.

“Our clients get so excited to take this tech to their customers,” Hotze says. “It allows the small grocers be really competitive.” Grocery Shopii is now live in many stores throughout the coun-

try. Hotze says it will be arriving in our area later this year—so stay tuned.

You’ll find Grocery Shoppi by visiting your grocer’s website and clicking on the recipe or meal-planning tab. Grocery Shopii hunts for personalized, Pinterestworthy recipes—with options to edit for 17 dietary concerns. It then fills your cart with recipe ingredients, you check out and your dinners are planned in five minutes or less.

innovations to come

Soon, Grocery Shopii will track groceries you may already have at home, helping you to avoid unnecessary purchases. Additional innovations from Hotze and her team will make online grocery shopping even easier and boost the revenue of independent grocers. And while Grocery Shopii helps the little stores take on the mammoth chains, Hotze will continue to refine what she set out to do: Make meal planning fun and fill your cart quickly.

Invest in this “Golden Unicorn”

In July 2021, the head of global retail for Microsoft called Katie Hotze with an opportunity to appear on the new Amazon TV show “Unicorn Hunters.” The show features high-potential startups seeking investors. A panel of seven celebrities assess the startup. After Katie’s pitch, all seven invested, including Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak, which made Grocery Shopii a “Golden Unicorn.”

“It was a magical day,” she says. “Bright lights, people staring at me, my voice echoing. I had to memorize a pitch for four minutes with no slides—and no reminders for the next piece of the pitch. I was so nervous,” she says, adding, “but to have Steve Wozniak compliment my skills was very emotional and will stay with me forever.”

She has raised $1.5 million and aspires to raise $15 million.

To invest, visit groceryshopii.com.