Instacart enters new healthcare partnership
Instacart continues expanding its efforts to promote food as medicine.
The grocery technology company is collaborating with Pack Health, a Quest Diagnostics company, to offer a complementary suite of services aimed at increasing access to food, nutrition education and coaching support for Pack Health patients.
Through this partnership, food insecure members enrolled in a Pack Health engagement program can receive same-day delivery of nutritious food from Instacart designed to suit their condition from local grocers through their health plan.
Pack Health will also provide weekly one-to-one coaching services, shopping lists and recipes, and dedicated support. All members enrolled in a Pack Health program will be matched with one of the company’s in-house health advisors to guide them through condition-specific modules over a 12-week period via a weekly phone call, two-way texts, and emails.
Pack Health piloted a similar program to a group of more 500 participants in the Southeast U.S. to favorable results in 2023.
Instacart Health – a brief history
Instacart introduced its Instacart Health program designed to promote access to healthy grocery and produce items in September 2022 and partnered with several academic institutions and health systems to examine the impact of nutrition security and food-as-medicine programs in March 2023.
In January 2024, Instacart launched a partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) eek opportunities to support food as medicine programs, research, outreach, and policy priorities that improve health outcomes and health equity across the U.S.
“Nutrition and health are deeply intertwined, and we believe there is an enormous opportunity to integrate food into healthcare to improve outcomes,” said Sarah Mastrorocco, VP and GM of Instacart Health. “Our mission is to give people access to nutritious food, and through Instacart Health, we’re dedicated to ensuring families not only have access, but also the resources and support needed to lead healthier lives. Through our collaborations, we’re offering user-friendly solutions that leverage Instacart’s reach, scale, selection and technology to address social determinants of health and make nutrition guidance from experts like Pack Health actionable.”
“We believe combining grocery delivery with nutrition coaching services can uniquely drive the adoption of healthy habits while teaching long term, sustainable behaviors to our members,” said Robert Ginter, VP and GM of Pack Health, a Quest Diagnostics company. “This relationship with Instacart will help food insecure individuals who are already managing their health through our coaching services change their lives for the better. We know that combining coaching services and access to fresh grocery delivery can be effective and are excited by this opportunity to reach more people across the country who remain in need of this service.”
Headquartered in San Francisco, Instacart partners with more than 1,400 national, regional and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 80,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace.