Image: Kavall
Kavall, a Swedish grocery delivery company, is trying something new: it’s giving some of its users a physical button that, when pressed, randomly selects a recipe and has the ingredients delivered by bike in around 10 minutes. The company says that the feature is meant to help people who have decision fatigue, but honestly, the idea of pressing a button and getting a surprise bag of groceries just seems too fun to not exist in the world.
In its press release, a translated version of which was sent to The Verge, Kavall says that “a limited number of users” have the actual button, which is stamped with the word “unplan,” if the company’s images are to be believed. People in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Norway who don’t have a button can also just use Kavall’s app to order a random meal kit, too, though the company says the program is currently in “pilot” for a limited time.
The idea feels like an interesting blend of Amazon’s Dash buttons (rest in peace), which you could press to order a specific item, grocery delivery services, and at-home meal kits that promised to take most of the decision-making out of cooking. The loot box-like randomness and spontaneity are interesting twists, though; long ago, I used HelloFresh because I was tired of making decisions about dinner, but I had to buy it a week or so in advance. But Kavall’s version would be useful for those nights when you realize it’s 5:50PM and you have no idea what to cook (and no real motivation to figure it out).
While it’s hard to say whether Kavall will keep this idea going after its pilot, it does seem like the type of thing that could be copied by other apps, including ones that operate in the US. There may also be some refinement to be done; the press release doesn’t mention whether you can set limits, which would be useful for a lot of people who want to use the feature. For example, vegetarians or people with allergies would probably want to be able to limit the recipes the app is choosing from to a list of ones they’re actually able to eat.