Gopuff's rampant growth has created 'a downward spiral into chaos'

Written By Warehouse Automation

Gopuff’s rapid growth to rapid grocery delivery giant has created a “downward spiral into chaos,” according to Business Insider.

The growth has created a culture of fraud and unsold inventories which has led to warehouse delivery managers discarding at least $10,000 worth of food a week.

Gopuff employees blame the company’s supply chain, which they claim is incapable of ordering accurate inventory.

However a spokesperson for the delivery giant told Business Insider it is better than the industry standard when it comes to food waste.

“The fact is that while waste is unfortunate but at times inevitable within the grocery and food industries, as a result of investments in enhanced operational efficiencies, waste from our micro-fulfillment centers is not only much lower than the 6-27 per cent industry norm, but continues to decline.

“These anonymous reports are anecdotal and not reflective of the incredible work done by our team every day,” the spokesperson said.

John Neal, who joined the company last summer, said he saw a pallet of perishable goods outside of the loading dock with condensation on tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, he told Business Insider.

He revealed that as his time with Gopuff went on, food remained outside of the busy Philadelphia warehouse, festering in the sun.

After looking four hours later, he found that no one had moved the food into the refrigerators or freezers, forcing Neal to discard the food.

Over his nine month tenure as warehouse manager, he revealed he regularly threw pallets of food including cases of milk, pizzas, chicken and ice cream.

This continued despite Neal’s complaints to the company that the supplier was sending too much food.

Gopuff did nothing to amend the branch’s supply, according to Neal.

This issue is rife amongst the company, current and former Gopuff workers revealed to Business Insider.

One former warehouse manager described the situation as saying “it was a downward spiral into chaos.”

The employees have revealed that thousands of dollars worth of products are routinely tossed after arriving from a ceaseless caravan of delivery trucks.

Another manager claims that he discards $10,000 per week as Gopuff still sends him more food despite his freezers and refrigerators being at full capacity.

“I’d tell Gopuff higher-ups I’m throwing away perfectly good cauliflower-crust pizza to accommodate Hot Pockets. They’d say, OK, yeah, that’s what’s done,” they said.

“I was throwing away a shocking amount of food.”

Workers claim that the cause of the problem is down to supply chains not having a grasp on how much product is needed, understaffed warehouses unable to process all the product shipments and not even space in warehouses to store food.

A company policy also exists whereby managers are not allowed to give excess products to employees, saying that it would encourage them to steal, despite the high levels of theft that exists anyway, according to the managers.

All of this is borne out the fear of Gopuff executives that if an item is out of stock then a customer will delete the app and turn to one of its many rivals.

Gopuff’s last funding round left the company at a $15 billion valuation and has grown astronomically during the pandemic.

The company acquired UK equivalent Dija in August.

It now competes with a range of companies in Europe including Gorillas, Getir and Jokr.

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