Hyper Convenience for Whom

53% of the people surveyed who buy coffee to go, a third buy it from supermarkets, 23% from forecourts and 19% from convenience stores. 60% of us have eaten breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner on the go. HYPER-CONVENIENCE means breaking boundaries to meet the needs of the 24/7 consumer’. Convenience for whom and is it worth it? The time between desire and fulfilment is getting shorter. What is the cost of hyper-convenience?

Loneliness and hyper-convenience

Dutch supermarket Jumbo has announced that 200 of its checkout counters will be turned into a ‘Kletskassa’, or chat checkout. At a Kletskassa, customers aren’t rushed and cashiers make time for a friendly chat. The family-owned supermarket chain is targeting stores in neighborhoods with high levels of loneliness, particularly among older adults. Cashiers are trained to recognize signs of loneliness, and stores are encouraged to launch local initiatives to combat isolation.  (read more).

Is hyper-convenience a by-product of a society is lonely? More and more singles and elderly are eating alone during the pandemic.

Apps deliver food and snacks in under ten minutes. They claim to get you to make purchases you would otherwise not make. Think of the huge impact on the environment of all these single serve packages. These encourage “grazing” ie snacking beyond eating occasions like lunch or dinner. Single serves are increasing cost of supply chain and impacting the climate. While they employ many people in local areas in what I call ‘Pin-Code jobs’, the pressure to deliver in absurdly short times means that the driver zig zags through traffic defying safety norms. For what?? To deliver an ice-cream to someone?

Would we be more forgiving if it was medicines being delivered to an elderly person? Or baby food and diapers to a working mother?

Music is already a single serve – you listen to it alone. Food is becoming single serve. Are we going to be a world connected only by the digital tech?

Let me know what you think?