How to Stretch Your Groceries w/Andy Ellwood
Learn How AI Can Help You Save Money On Groceries
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If you’ve thought, how am I going to continue to afford these grocery prices, this episode is for you.
Today’s guest, Andy Ellwood, founder of Stretch Groceries, is sharing how this new and evolving AI app can support you in getting the best deal with your groceries.
By the end of this episode, you’ll understand better what this app can do for you, what it plans to do by end of summer, and how to submit your own ideas.
Topics covered in this podcast episode:
Why grocery prices are broken and the origin story behind Stretch
How Stretch works and finds savings for shoppers
Personalized smart shopping lists tailored to your habits
Diet toggles and what's coming on the feature roadmap
Location access vs. convenience: the tradeoffs explained
The mission to make nutritious food more affordable and equitable
Inspired?! If you want to lean more, be sure to connect with Andy Ellwood!
Connect with Andy:
https://www.instagram.com/andyellwood/
Download the app:
Unedited Transcription of Episode:
W elcome Andy. I'm so excited to talk about this new app of yours, to introduce it to listeners as I know we have all been consumed and being consumed by grocery prices. So I'm gonna start off the interview with this question. What was the moment you looked at grocery shopping and thought, "This is the problem I need to solve"?
I became... It was when I became a dad, and I was buying a lot of things that I hadn't bought previously over and over again. And depending upon which store I went to in my neighborhood, they were different prices. And then you start to add up, I wasn't ever going to the store for one thing, I was going to the store for multiple things.
And all of a sudden I'm like wait. What's the right combination of things to buy at this store versus this store? Should I buy it at the store that says it's cheaper? But this other one has discounts and coupons, and this one has a loyalty program." And I just was like, it was like, like the information is all here, it's just not organized very well.
And I was thinking about the other things that I spend money on. I would never buy a $500 flight without comparing it on Expedia. I'm gonna go to Expedia or Kayak and would just check. I'm probably gonna pick my normal airline 'cause I've s- so, some status there. But I, but if another, major airline is 50% less I'd switch.
And I think the, that same thing for buying homes or buying a car, or even now with GoodRx, for buying prescriptions. W- we could compare prices for most of the things that we purchase, but for groceries we just go to a 40,000 square foot store with refrigerators and hope that they charged us a fair price.
And I said, for the thing that I'm spending $1,000 a month on that seems like a silly thing to do, just to trust that, this, the local store is gonna give me the best price for the products that I have. So I just said what would it look like if we created a grocery companion?
What would it look like if we had... What would it be like if I had a really smart friend that knew everything about groceries- ... did all the homework and research for me, and then when it was time for me to go to the store it told me, it gave me the answers. And so that's what we set out to try and build with Stretch.
Love that. I love that. So tell us just a little bit about Stretch its, what it is. And I know your tagline is, "Don't grocery alone," right? So yeah, just enlighten us just a little bit more about what Stretch is and how it can help us.
Yeah. So Stretch converts your grocery list into actionable intelligence.
So if you just take a photo of this week's grocery list, drop it into Stretch, Stretch will show you every store close by that's on the platform that carries all of your products and what the total price is for your entire shopping list at each local store. And so it might be $70 over here and $84 over there, and $96 there, and $110 there.
But the $110 sto- store is the one that's closest to you. So if you're in a big hurry, you might go there, but you realize, "Yeah, but I could save $36 if I went to this other store. Ah, what..." And b- just even to be able to have choice is a really amazing feeling that when I first saw it working r- for me, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I actually know what the trade-offs are.
I know that turning left or turning right, out of my home might l- you know, give me the ability to save 20 bucks. And I've got a little bit of time to be able to drive, maybe one block further, one, one intersection further to go to that store that carries basically all the same things that the closer store carries, but for 20 bucks less."
And just feeling empowered and knowing that I'm in control is an amazing feeling that I didn't fully expect that I would feel because, I'm the one who's building this thing. But then when it happened for me, I was like, "Oh my gosh everybody should have this."
And so that's what we're working on doing and doing our best to share it with as many people as we possibly can.
Yeah. I love that. To be able to know... Yeah, 'cause I... I have two similar stores left or right, but I have one more option left, and I have several more if I go just a bit further. And so it's yeah, being, intentional maybe with grocery shopping, buying, planning- Yeah
and using Stretch to do that. So love that. Love that. Okay, you talk about Stretch learning your list over time. So we just mentioned dropping it in there, it gives you the list, but it also helps you learn your list over time. How does it do that? And how does it personalize it for you?
Yeah, so I think that every family every grocery shopping trip, starts with a list.
And the, the- Very important thing about Stretch is that you build a list, you don't build a cart, right? So on all of the other grocery shopping apps out there, you're building a cart with very specific products, right? So it's, it is family-sized Special K, with protein berries, right? You have to pick that exact thing.
In order to compare across all of the stores locally, not every store probably carries the family size of Special K. So on your list on Stretch, you just write cereal, and we get to know that you mean Special K. And if it's available at the other stores, we'll show it to you. But if it's not available at the stores, we'll give you the next closest for your list.
And the more that you use Stretch, the more we understand the things that are in your, what we call consideration set. So when I write cereal on my list, it means Special K, it means Raisin Bran, or it means Honey Nut Cheerios. I'm okay with any of those three if I write cereal on my list, if I'm not being specific.
But then there's other things that I don't really care which box of pasta, which blue box of pasta, I come home with, right? As long as it's rigatoni, it's gonna be okay with in my family. And I'm a little bit less brand conscious or, when it comes to that.
And so I think every family's a little bit different, right? Some, there's probably 30% of the list that you really care about certain brands because that's your kid's favorite or that's the one that, you have the most affinity towards. And then there's 70% of the things like, "Hey, if you could make this cheaper, please do."
And so we start to understand that. And our shoppers are giving us more and more feedback in the process, and that's been super helpful for us to just make the app that much more tailored. Because, when it's all said and done, I, I know that I have been handed a grocery shopping list by my wife and had to guess what-
The item, like which one's the correct one, when I get to the store. And Stretch takes away that guesswork. And I had one shopper tell me that Stretch was gonna save her marriage. And it is- ... a unintended side consequence of building a smart grocery shopping list.
Yeah. Yeah. So bringing that up, my sister says that about her husband as when he retired and he's doing the grocery shopping and she's "I either deal with five calls from him or the wrong thing," when she comes home. And- Yeah ... in fact, that happened when I went out there and she's "I have a big box of Cheerios, but it's not Honey Nut Cheerios."
And so- Yeah ... Stretch can definitely save some marriages.
We we include photos in the shopping list.
Love that. Love that. Very helpful for somebody running the, your errands for you. I know I, I would even get specific with my husband 'cause he would go and on, the store app it says the aisle and everything.
So I'd put that on there and he'd be like, "I can't find it. I can't find it." I'm like, "Okay, you're gonna have to go ask somebody now." So- ... love that. Okay. As the personalization happens, as this considerations start building out, what if somebody were... 'Cause I'm just thinking sometimes that happens, what if somebody all of a sudden had to do a big overhaul, either gluten-free or dairy conscious, as you get kids and different things happen.
Yeah. How does Stretch know or work with that?
Yeah. So it's one of the things that we're building right now, which is not live in the app yet, but w- we have this concept of being able to toggle your grocery list. So make this list cheaper, make this list closer, make this list get here faster, make this list- dairy-free, make this list gluten-free try to be healthier, wanna eat more local. Different prompts, if you would wanna use that, that language, to be able to take your original list and be able to position it that way. So that's where a lot of the, this personalization's coming in.
Knowing what your household goals are is a thing that we're thinking a lot about. For some families, it's "Hey, we're really trying to be healthier." Is there a way to take this, these recipes that, turn into the shopping list and make it a healthier version, using yogurt instead of sour cream?
Whatever it might be. And so just thinking through those types of things something that, that we're in progress with. But it's, it won't be live in the app until maybe l- end of summer. Just- Okay ... th- thinking about those pieces. But it's a big part, when you think about, everything that's on our grocery list you, you learn, you know a lot about somebody's household, pretty quickly.
And so we wanna make sure that we're really honoring that, making sure that, we're customizing it in a way that is not overstepping, but is, very helpful to our shoppers in real time.
Yeah. Yeah, that's very helpful. Thinking about, I can't remember the word you said, overstepping also thinking of Big Brother, right?
As this information is there- Yeah ... do users need to be worried? What do they need to, kind of privacy, if there's any, all of those concerns that might rise up?
Yeah. Because of the, the personal nature of everything we're doing we did a lot of privacy and security work to begin with before even, before we even launched the app.
So much of this information, like I said is very personal and, you hear stories of, grocery stores knowing more about their shoppers than the shoppers know about themselves, and we're very conscious about, how it's used and where it gets used.
But it, but it's also, there's a certain level of things that, in our onboarding process we have to know something about you in order to be helpful. And we try to walk people through. But any time that we're asking for information w- it's being used, to be able to give you actionable, information back.
And, thinking through all those privacy pieces was pretty foundational for the way that we built this.
Yeah. I like that. I like that. So then another spin on it, as grocery stores, so we've got the user, all of our needs, all of our ideas, all of our information, then we have the grocery stores.
So I'm thinking, wow, this is going to be for my area, the area I used to live, my sister's, and some overlap of stores, but not a lot. How does the app handle that?
Yeah. So wherever you are when you click get recommendation or find stores is, we take that list at that moment in time, in that geography.
Obviously, d- different people are willing to drive d- different distances, for for their list. We call it proximity pricing preference, right? How far will you drive to save how much money? Some people will drive a really long ways to save, to save 20 bucks.
Yeah. Other people won't drive any distance to save 20 bucks, and sometimes it has to do with day of the week, time of day, and how many kids are in the back seat of the car, right? If it's Tuesday at 10:30 during a school day, maybe, you got a little bit extra time, you can drive to the store that's a little further.
But if it's 6:30 and you're on your way home from soccer practice, I don't care how much it costs, just I need these three things to get dinner on the table tonight. Yeah. And so we allow you to adjust the search radi- radius and to type in the address where you wanna shop from. So if it's not exactly where you are but it's where you're going you can do that as well.
Yeah. That's very helpful. That's very helpful. I like that being able to cover all of the progress. When I was at my sister's, I was just there for two weeks I was, like, talking with her husband about stores and the grocery stores, and realizing they don't have any middle of the road stores.
It's so interesting. But how helpful this would be as you move, right? They had the very low and they have the very high, but your middle of the road or your locals were nonexistent. But maybe they are, right? And he just doesn't know it's gonna be the town, southeast as opposed to northwest, so I think that's very good, all right, so grocery budgets are a real pressure point for a lot of families right now. Families, couples, singles, I don't care, groceries are hitting, and I always watch and see people start trying to balance a budget on groceries, and I always tell them no. However, I think Stretch could be very supportive in that.
So how intentional is the mission of Stretch around economic access, and who exactly are you building this for?
Yeah, the, since the pandemic, grocery prices are up over 30%, and for the wealthiest country in the history of the world, for us to have food insecurity in this country is something I'm just absolutely en- enraged by, and very strongly working to do what we can to say, "Hey, prices have gone up because there's no accountability that would ever cause them to go down."
And I think that's what I hope Stretch stands for, is to first give shoppers the ability to understand what their actual choices are, but then it, the fear that people say, around price and transparency, "Oh, it's gonna be a race to the bottom." No. No, it's not. It's just people are going to be a- able to actually get the food they need to feed their families at a price that they're willing to pay, and I think that's been become so much of a challenge.
The big aha for me was last summer we talked to over 1,000 families across 47 different states, and 84% of the people that we spoke to were planning to buy groceries differently next month than they were this month. They were consciously trading down at stores, consciously trading down on brands and, unfortunately in some cases, trading down on nutrition.
Yeah. And that's h- hard to see when, th- there's, seemingly so many good things happening, in the headlines about, oh, this is what the stock market did, and things along those lines. But it's n- it's not- The case for everybody. And I think the part that really broke my heart was that 17% of the people that we spoke with had skipped a meal sometime in the past month so somebody else in their family didn't have to.
And they intentionally said I'll sit this one out," so that somebody else in their family could eat, and that's just crazy to me. And unfortunately, I'm very nervous about the fall this year. That everything that's been happening in the geopolitical world, it's affecting, fertilizer, it's affecting, shipping lanes and all of that is gonna affect our food costs this fall.
And so we're making sure that S- Stretch is ready for all of that because a lot of people are really reconsidering their budgets and thinking about, "Man, all right, we've, we were gonna buy, that steak, but maybe we'll buy ground turkey instead." We were gonna buy, and, we've got holidays coming up, Memorial Day and Fourth of July, like summer things, but kids aren't in school during the summer, which means, bigger strain on families at home if they're eating at home. All of those things are happening, as we speak and it's just, in some ways shining a light on just how important, the work that we're trying to do is.
Yeah. That's so enlightening and so helpful, and I think it's also helpful for listeners to realize it might not just be them, right? That it, this is an experience worldwide. Yeah. But really tuning into, I liked, I, I didn't like how you were saying everybody's trading down, but I think that Stretch could serve and let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking from our discussion if there's certain areas you could trade down- and certain areas you could maybe try to grab that higher nutrition, right? 'Cause it's about nutrition to avoid illness, to avoid- Yeah ... medical costs, right? It's, it, everything's tied to everything. I get that. So talk a little bit about how Stretch could support maybe not an all or nothing- Yeah
'cause I know that's what my clients love to do is it's all or nothing. I'm like, "No, there's gotta be a middle of the road." Let's talk about middle of the road.
Yeah. I think that the, w- when I think about the way that grocery stores are laid out, they make it, it easy to think about the things that you should be willing to pay for and maybe the things that you should be willing to trade down for.
So outer aisle, meat, seafood, dairy, produce, those are the things that for me, I still want- To order the things I want. I want certain things to be organic. I want certain, I wanna see the marbling on my meat. I wanna, check the expiration date on my milk, and I wanna make sure I'm getting, the brown eggs that my, my wife loves.
Stuff that's on the inner aisle. I have stuff in the aisles, that's packaged, processed, canned, bagged. It's a little bit less specific and there are, and it's a little bit more shelf stable so you can maybe pick something that's gonna last you longer.
There's different sizing, techniques that will m- maybe give you the discount. All of the unit pricing is, is on those. So that's where I've seen a lot of people, be better at. If you do have to make trade-offs, make trade-offs on the inner aisle as opposed to the outer aisle.
So it's something that we're working on with Stretch of thinking, going back to the personalization. We have a concept of, put in your budget and tell me what you're trying to accomplish this week. This is a future... It's not in the app yet, but it's something that we're working on for the future.
And the ability, to say, "Hey, I've got 80 bucks and I'm trying to make three dinners for a family of six this week." What, here's here's what I already have in my, in my pantry. What else do I need to buy? Like, how can I make this stretch? And then, o- one of the things we were testing, actually had a conversation earlier today, was what if we said, "Okay, now show me what I can do for 60 bucks."
And started, h- a toggle and say, "Hey, this is what the trade-offs would be." Okay. So things that we're thinking about but there's still a lot of work to do. And so I hope that your listeners will download Stretch and give us the feedback 'cause we read every single comment.
Ev- everybody grocery shops. That's the, it's the universal thing. But everybody has a certain way that they like to grocery shop, and so we're doing our best to serve everybody and meet them where they're at.
I love that. I love that. So listeners, here's your action step. We're not ending this episode yet, but I want an action step.
Go download Stretch. Go start to use it. I'll get Andy to help us with those first initial steps. Use it and leave the comments. Let's get this built so that we are benefiting from it, right? All of us b- going to the grocery store, all of us, 80 bucks for six. Holy cow, I don't know if I could do that.
And then drop it down to 60. But whatever your grocery budget is, it sounds like Stretch can support you. So Andy, with them going off and doing that, where do they need to go? What are the first steps they need to do, and wh- what are s- the first action steps within the app?
Yeah. Stretchgroceries.com is the website.
It has all the information. Also has a demo video, so you can see it there. But also when you get to, when you go to the App Store the download buttons are on our website, or if you go to your favorite app store, Stretch Groceries, just search that and you'll see us there.
We'll be the top result. And then when you sign up, you have to give us a little bit of information about you, like where your location so we can know what stores are close by and, build your first list. And I always encourage people, the, your first list you may not you may not give us all 40 items that are on your list this week.
Build a list with five, right? And just click Get Recommendation. And you'll be amazed at how much a difference in price you'll see at stores close by. And if there's a store that you love that isn't already on the platform, let us know so we can add it. Because we're, we're a young company, but we're moving fast.
But we're moving fast to try and solve a really big problem, and every single person that downloads the app helps us get a little bit closer.
Yeah. It is so big, so huge. I'm just thinking of everything. I have one question. It is a personal question, but I'm sure that there's other listeners. Can I take my list and then dump it?
I guess I just have to copy it into a cart in the app for pickup. I don't go to any stores, right?
Yeah. So we are working on those integrations as we speak. So- Perfect ... curbside pickup and delivery are both on the roadmap for later this year.
Awesome. Awesome, love that. All right. So where does Stretch go from here?
I know you've talked about a lot of things. Do you see AI expanding into other parts of how family thinks about food? I know we talked about a lot, so anything else you can add?
Yeah. I think that when it's all said and done, we want to be that companion. 'Cause, a lot of times it just feels like we're all alone trying to figure this out and doing our best.
And I think that, my, my note to your listeners is your, is everybody's doing better than they think they are and you're not the only person, right? Like we're all trying to figure this out, and especially in 2026 when so many things are changing and so many things are moving. The, there's a lot of other people who are asking similar questions to you, so don't be afraid, to ask a friend or find, professionals who can, yeah, answer those questions for you.
But hopefully Stretch, just continues to become the place where every grocery trip starts, right? We- we're building shopper first very intentionally, right? You look at all the crazy things that are happening in technology, AI that's being built, most of the AI that's being built is being built by the grocery stores to help the grocery stores make more money.
Walmart has Sparky and Amazon has Rufus. Stretch is for the shoppers. And, there's a future that I can imagine where Stretch goes out and talks to Sparky at Walmart and negotiates on your behalf. Says, "Hey- ... here's the Henderson family. This is what they like to buy.
These are the things that they're wanting to buy this week. What can you do for them?" We talked with the founder of Priceline and he said, "You make Priceline for groceries." Just, "Hey here's their shopping list this week. Do you wanna win it?" And it's a big idea, but it's something that I think a lot about.
I'm like, man, how could we do that? That would be incredible, to have- That'd be amazing ... an AI that helps everybody and not just, not just the wealthy people who, have staff. Like what if we built staff for everybody? What if every family had, somebody helping them with their groceries and, it's the thing that we all buy the most frequently, and it's the epicenter of the family.
So that's where w- how big our imagination is. But, the main thing we wanna do is just help people feel like they're not alone and that they've got some help.
Ah, I love that. I love that. Yeah, taking it as a companion, getting it, starting it, building it. Leave your comments. Let Andy know what you're missing or what you need more of.
I think that's always good, right? Serving the people that are using it. So if you're using it, make sure you leave those comments there. So one last question before we close off. What is your most favorite thing about Stretch? Whether it's a small thing, a big thing, and then also what is one of the biggest compliments, reviews that you've got about Stretch?
Yeah. I think on the, on, on the compliment side of things the internet is not a nice place sometimes and I've been building, building internet companies for over 20 years and, feedback is not always super nice. But the thing I love, one of the things I love most about Stretch is that all of the feedback starts with, "Thank you for trying to build this, but here's how it could be better."
So it's, so it's always like a compliment first and then feedback second. Yeah. But almost all the feedback, like kinda has a compliment first and then, feedback second. So I think that's the, that's the thing that gets me most excited about what we're building and the people that we're serving.
Yeah, I like that. I said that one time, told my daughter I made a comment to somebody. I said, "Thank you, but..." And she says, "It's not a compliment anymore." And I'm like, "Oh." But just know if you're gonna go to Andy and say, "I would love to see this," so that he can keep building it. Sounds like you've got a lot of ideas already in the works.
It's just time and effort and your team putting it together. So I'm excited for listeners to go download it. Make sure you guys do that. And reach out to Andy if you have any questions. Anything else before we close?
No, I just, rem- remind, remind your listeners, don't grocery alone.
Yeah.
Awesome. Thank you. We can figure it out together.
