Foodoro went on a field trip to taste some of the best American foods under one roof: Slow Food Nation’s Taste Pavilion. What’s Slow Food? As its name suggests, Slow Food is a movement to combat fast food based on principles of location, sustainability, etc. Here’s the Wikipedia article for more details.

The San Francisco event generated a ton of local press in recent weeks, some positive, some negative. We’re not here to judge but two things about the event that jumped out at us were:

The food tasted very very very good. Every shining example of chocolate, salumi, wine, tuna, pickled plums, ice cream and other food we tasted had a story behind it that really made us appreciate the passion that went into creating it. Did we mention how tasty it all was?

The event was exclusive. Slow Food Nation did have events scattered throughout the city, several which were cost-free, but tickets to the Taste Pavilion cost $45 to $65 (we saw ticket prices exceed $200 on Craigslist). The Friday showing we attended was “invitation only.” In addition, the entire event was curated and only certain producers passing particular criteria were able to showcase their food.

Much of the criticism around Slow Food Nation targets its exclusivity, but we understand that they have to draw a line somewhere. For Foodoro, our hope is that the community of food producers and consumers will help guide us in drawing our own boundaries.

Enjoy some photos from our field trip.

E-commerce customer service has come a long way. What used to be transactions with unknown agents has evolved to something much more friendly and approachable. Perhaps no company exemplifies this better than Zappos.com, which anoints itself a “customer service company that happens to sell shoes.” Stories abound how even the CEO, Tony Hsieh, responds personally to emails; we reached out to him and ended up having a brief but personal chat over email.

However, Zappos seems to be the exception. We’ve had three online experiences in the last 24 hours that illustrate the broad spectrum of online customer service:

• Big Box Office Supply: We bought a printer under rebate and they gave us the classic runaround: “We can’t help you. You need to call someone else.”
• Event Tickets: We bought tickets to attend a high-demand event directly from the organizers. The ones running the event oversold tickets and claimed not to have received our order. Maybe an honest glitch but they said “too bad.”
• Gift Certificate: We bought a gift certificate that never got delivered. They said “sorry, our fault,” called us immediately and increased the original value by a fair amount for free.

One out of three isn’t bad but we think it should be much higher. Foodoro plans to do what it can to raise the average. We understand nobody is perfect, but admitting mistakes and making up for them goes a long way to making customers happy.

Americans spend about $1 trillion buying food every year. This is an enormous number so let’s break it down a bit:

• About half, or $500 billion, goes to buying groceries
• The other half is spent at restaurants
• 1% - 2% of groceries are bought online, the lowest of any category (compared to more than 50% of computer hardware and software)

That means consumers spend about 99% of their food budget at physical locations such as supermarkets, grocery stores, restaurants, farmers markets, and one-stop superstores.

Point taken.

This is why we’re building a really neat store locator that will help people find amazing products nearby. Our mantra is to help people “discover great food,” whether that means online or in the real world. That way, when you’re browsing through the 45,000 products at the typical supermarket, you’ll have the scoop on some of the tastiest stuff there. Or if you have a craving for that special something right now, we can help you find it nearby.

Note: Food is a big market so estimates will vary. Plunkett’s Alamanac believes the U.S. food industry is about $1 trillion (half restaurant, half grocery) and that online has a 1% penetration of grocery. Forrester believes online penetration is 2% of a $300 billion grocery market.

Websites can be huge, and navigating through lots of information can be daunting. A really good search feature can help, especially when a user knows what she’s looking for. Amazon.com has a useful search engine that makes it easy to pinpoint an item in their enormous marketplace.

But what happens when users aren’t sure what’s available? Often times, a few generic searches lead to some dead ends and an underwhelming experience. Discovery is important to keep people engaged, especially in the world of food.

We think one website that makes discovery fun is wikipedia. Every article presents the possibility of taking many different journeys of knowledge. For instance, let’s play a game of “five degrees of ‘chocolate’” on wikipedia and see where we end up (we’ll try and stick closely to food-related terms):

‘Chocolate’ >> ‘Antioxidants’ >> ‘Cardiovascular disease’ >> ‘Olive Oil’ >> ‘Omega-3 fatty acid’ >> ‘Flaxseed’

‘Chocolate’ >> ‘Truffles’ >> ‘Cream’ >> ‘Butterfat’ >> ‘Swiss cheese’ >> ‘Emmental (cheese)’

‘Chocolate’ >> ‘Hanukkah’ >> ‘Kosher’ >> ‘Fairtrade certification’ >> ‘Sustainable production’ >> ‘Farmers’ market’

We want to make discovery a useful feature of Foodoro because there are so many cool food makers and products we want to show off. To achieve this, we’re thinking long and hard about all the different ways people think about food and build features that makes discovery fun and eye-opening.

Shipping food online can be complicated. The rules governing product shipments vary widely, for example:

• Discounted shipping for purchases above a certain amount
• Shipping only on certain days of the week (e.g., when products are freshest)
• Additional charges depending on weather or season (e.g., chocolate in the summertime)
• Exceptions for far away destinations like Hawaii and Alaska
• Minimum purchase criteria
• And on and on and on…

We understand that different merchants have different needs, so we’re building tools that make shipping options extremely flexible and customizable. Above all, we’re making sure that users find shipping information to be forthright and accurate.