Design was a crucial element of Inflation Cookbook’s success. While the data-process was complex, the platform’s design had to be brutally simple and iconic, simplifying an anxiety-ridden process for Canadians and creating appetite appeal that will have them look forward to their next inflation-beating meal.

Inflation Cookbook is still online at www.inflationcookbook.com

Canada's grocery landscape is dominated by only five major players (who control 80% of the market), which has resulted in a highly concentrated market with limited competition. These big retailers hold significant sway over pricing, making it challenging for consumers to find substantial savings. This was exasperated by historically high inflation and food insecurity, for which big grocers were heavily blamed in the media, as their profit kept raising.

As a new player in THAT category, SkipExpressLane knew it had to provide value before asking anything of consumers, if it were to stand a chance to stand out.

In this context, Inflation Cookbook offers a refreshing alternative that empowers Canadians to make informed decisions about their grocery purchases. By providing real-time price information and personalized healthy meal options, Skip aimed to democratize access to pricing information and promote cost awareness. Inflation Cookbook encourages a more competitive landscape than the Canadian grocery market has seen in years. This, in turn, has the potential to drive positive change, as major retailers may need to adapt their strategies and pricing models to retain consumer loyalty in the face of an increasingly informed and price-savvy customer base.

Inflation – particularly in grocery items – has left Canadian families in a precarious position. With prices fluctuating constantly and little understanding of what drives the volatility, it has become near impossible to manage food expenses while maintaining a healthy, nutritious diet. In turn, many families are being forced to choose unhealthy, lower-cost foods. And in 2022, over 8 million Canadians skipped meals, forced to choose between essentials like food, rent, medication, and clothes. Foodbank usage also skyrocketed, increasing 425%.

Meanwhile, grocery retailers were making record profits and quickly became public enemy #1, as everyone blamed them for the price volatility and accused them of opportunism.

It was a bad time to launch a new grocery brand. But that was our brief.

Our brief was to launch SkipExpressLane as an innovative alternative to traditional grocery options, by creating awareness about the new service and getting Canadians to sign-up

Inflation Cookbook is a digital grocery shopping tool that tracks real-time food pricing data to help Canadians get inflation out of their cart. It addresses the complex challenge of price volatility in the industry. By harnessing real-time data insights, the platform tracks weekly price fluctuations of 400+ key ingredients across all major retailers and 80+ locations nationwide.

The core creative idea lies in its ability to transform real-time data on price volatility into actionable, budget-conscious options for consumers. Providing this invaluable information to Canadian families while grocery shopping allows them to make informed decisions that lead to significant savings and healthier meal choices. This inventive approach disrupts the grocery industry pricing strategies and creates a lasting impact on the lives of Canadian families, amidst historical inflationary conditions.

Our guiding principle:

Complex platform inner working, served in a brutally simple, iconic and consumer friendly way.

We used recognizable stock market-inspired visual language as well as grocery receipt codes to display the real-time pricing data. This allowed us to convey complex information in a familiar and easily digestible format for users to quickly understand the price trends of various ingredients. It also reinforced the platform's core concept – tackling food inflation through smart, data-driven shopping.

Conversely, we choose to make the food imagery for the recipes stunning to create appetite appeal to inspire Canadians to feel good about the choices they would make and have them look forward to their meals, despite the anxiety of inflation. Midjourney’s unique style turned out to be just right to fulfill this need.

IMPACT FOR CANADIAN FAMILIES

Inflation Cookbook‘s impact on Canadians’ grocery bills is undeniable, allowing a family of four to save, on average, 20.3% on their weekly cart . This reduction in grocery expenses demonstrates Inflation Cookbook's effectiveness in empowering consumers to make informed, budget-conscious, healthy decisions. From April to December 2023, it is estimated to have generated over $21.8M in total savings for Canadian families.

BUSINESS IMPACT FOR SKIP EXPRESS LANE

During the campaign period, Inflation Cookbook directly referred 21 380 new users (accounts created) to SkipExpressLane, adding up to more than $4.3M in customer lifetime value and revenue for the business.

EARNED MEDIA AND PLATFORM USAGE

Inflation Cookbook gained significant attention as soon as it was launched, with over 400 million media impressions and 355+ articles published within the first week alone, which allowed it to capture a sizeable following (28,600 weekly users), a testament to its widespread resonance.