Making Medically-Tailored Nutrition Advice More Actionable: Instacart Health Welcomes New Food as Medicine Partners

As the leading grocery technology company in North America, Instacart has come to play a major role in people’s grocery shopping habits — and that means we’re also playing a major role in people’s health. This is not a responsibility we take lightly, which is why we launched Instacart Health earlier this year. 

Instacart Health is designed to deliver the ingredients for healthier living, with a focus on three key areas: Nutrition Security, Making Healthier Choices Easier, and Food as Medicine. As a company at the intersection of food and nutrition, we believe these are the areas where we can have the greatest impact. 

Our Food as Medicine pillar is about giving healthcare providers and their patients new tools to promote health, because we believe that food can play a major role in preventative care and an important role in curative care. Today, we’re excited to announce three new Food as Medicine partnerships designed to modernize and deepen the collaborative care between patients and providers by making medically-tailored nutrition advice more actionable.

Leading primary care provider ChenMed and Instacart Health to address health equity for heart patients  

ChenMed’s mission is to bring affordable, accessible care to seniors and to drive better health outcomes. Through its partnership with Instacart, ChenMed will be offering its patients with congestive heart failure assistance in three ways: 1) signing up for Instacart, 2) adding their EBT SNAP benefits to their profiles, and 3) accessing ChenMed’s medically tailored, heart healthy recipes with the tap of a button or scan of a QR code. The Instacart and ChenMed partnership is complemented by ChenMed’s existing relationship with its preferred rideshare partner, Lyft Healthcare, which collectively begin to solve two key pillars of access, nutrition and transportation. Today, Lyft Healthcare provides access to transportation to and from ChenMed clinics for medical appointments and in-person cooking classes, and with Instacart Health, ChenMed will now make those in-class recipes shoppable on Instacart, so patients can quickly and easily order them with just a scan or tap. 

Insurtech company The Helper Bees will use Instacart Fresh Funds and Care Carts to help seniors age in place

Leading insurtech company The Helper Bees has also partnered with Instacart Health and will be introducing a new benefit for their senior clients using Instacart Fresh Funds and Care Carts. With Instacart Fresh Funds, any organization can allocate funds for people to buy nutritious food from grocery retailers on the Instacart platform, and with Care Carts, healthcare providers and caregivers have the ability to order groceries on behalf of someone else. The Helper Bees, who partner with insurers and health plans, will offer their Medicare Advantage members access to up to $100 per month in Instacart Fresh Funds for nutritious groceries. Helper Bees care advisors will also be using Instacart’s Care Carts product to order and schedule Instacart orders on behalf of members. By providing delivery of nutritious foods from trusted local retailers, The Helper Bees can help seniors age in place with dignity and live independently for longer.

Levels Health is partnering with Instacart Health to make metabolic nutrition advice more actionable 

Innovative software company Levels Health gives members real-time feedback on how food affects their health through biosensors – like continuous glucose monitors – and personalized insights. Levels will be partnering with Instacart to make their health advice more actionable and lower effort through recipes and shopping lists. As part of the partnership, Levels’ members will be able to purchase the ingredients for the recommended recipes – like Chia Pudding and Cauliflower Thin Crust Pizza – and metabolically healthy shopping lists via Instacart with just one tap. 

Instacart Health is building innovative solutions for healthcare companies and their patients and users just like we’ve built leading technology solutions for grocers over the last ten years. The work we do is focused on building deep relationships that drive value for our partners and the people who trust them with one of the most important parts of everyday life: the food we eat. 

You can read more about Instacart Health in our announcement blog from Instacart CEO Fidji Simo and expect us to share more details on additional partners – across our Nutrition Security, Making Healthier Choices Easier, and Food as Medicine pillars – in the months ahead. 

Sarah Mastrorocco

Author

Sarah Mastrorocco is Vice President and General Manager of Health for Instacart. A longtime Instacart veteran and leader, Sarah today oversees Instacart Health, designed to support businesses, nonprofits and consumers across three key areas: Nutrition Security, Making Healthier Choices Easier, and Food as Medicine. Sarah has played an integral role at Instacart since joining as the first member of the company’s business development team in 2014. During her tenure at Instacart, she’s taken on various leadership positions across Business Development, Account Management, and Catalog. Prior to this current role, Sarah oversaw and scaled Instacart’s Pickup business.