A Fresh Approach
By Consuelo Valverde and Fred Albert
April 2023
After leading the ride-hailing app Cabify to unicorn status, Ricardo Weder decided to turn his attention to the grocery industry. What he found was an unserved market that turned out to be a $700 billion opportunity.
Prior to Ricardo’s launch of Jüsto, consumers in Latin America were relying on grocers with poor online presence and a reputation for limited options and inconsistent quality. Ricardo jumped at the chance to disrupt the market by building a new type of supermarket — one without physical stores and middle men — delivering a digitally-enabled online grocery experience that offers more options and fresher, warehouse-direct food at the same price.
Mexico leads the world in diabetes and has the second-highest rate of obesity. “If we improved the fresh alternatives, fresh consumption should increase,” Ricardo says. “It was a way to impact people’s health.”
“I was looking for a problem that was relevant to me and to many people,” reflects Ricardo. Food is one of the biggest expenses for families in Mexico, which also happens to lead the world in diabetes and has the world’s second-highest rate of obesity. “If we improved the fresh alternatives, fresh consumption should increase,” he says. “It was a way to impact people’s health.”
Jüsto (Spanish for “fair”) launched an MVP (minimal viable product) very quickly. Its MVP was an online catalog that extracted all kinds of grocery products from other websites, and showed users the lowest price available. Jüsto’s team then purchased the items from various suppliers and delivered them to the customer at night, together with a complimentary flower and a 200-peso coupon. “To our surprise, despite having every grocery item at the lowest price and roughly a 20 percent discount on your order, nobody ordered,” Ricardo says. “Even acquaintances did not order from us.”
The team soon realized that consumers weren’t ready to sell out their family’s health to save a peso — especially when it came to perishables. “If you pick out an avocado at the supermarket and it turns out to be bad, you blame yourself,” Ricardo says. But when someone delivers an avocado to you and it’s bad, you blame the supplier. “And that is where we began understanding and deepening our value proposition.”
While Ricardo admits he didn’t know the grocery industry at first, that can sometimes work to your advantage, he points out, because you’re not weighted down by biases or preconceptions.
The Jüsto team doubled down on quality, value, service and consistency, stocking products in their own warehouse. The approach seemed to work. After its launch in Mexico in 2019, Jüsto quickly expanded, becoming a ubiquitous presence in Colombia, Chile, Peru and Brazil.
While Ricardo admits he didn’t know the grocery industry at first, that can sometimes work to your advantage, he points out, because you’re not weighted down by biases or preconceptions.
Resilience helps, as well. “I am very resilient,” he says. “It’s believing in ‘yes’ without doubting that we are going to make it sooner or later. I think that’s important.”
For the time being, Ricardo is focusing on his current markets. But eventually, he hopes to capture Latinos living in the southern U.S. “Once we conquer Brazil and Mexico,” he says, confidently, “the rest will follow.”