Instacart to deliver health kits to its shoppers

Just days after instituting increased safety measures such as making its own hand sanitizer, Instacart has begun delivering health and safety kits to its full-service in-store shoppers. 

San Francisco-based Instacart said they have worked with third-party manufacturers in the last few weeks, in consultation with medical and infectious disease experts, to source and develop products for the health kits that include washable face masks, hand sanitizer and thermometers. The kits begin shipping next week. On Monday, some Instacart workers held a walkout to protest that the delivery leader wasn’t doing enough during the heightened COVID-19 crisis.

"We're singularly focused on the health and safety of our shopper community. Our teams have been working around the clock over the last few weeks to proactively secure personal protective equipment like hand sanitizer and face masks, without taking away valuable resources from healthcare workers given inventory delays and global supply scarcity," said Nilam Ganenthiran, president of Instacart. "We want to provide customers with an essential service they can rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart personal shoppers. As COVID-19 evolves, today's health and safety solutions will be tomorrow's table stakes, and our teams are working quickly to introduce new services and features to ensure our shopper community is supported as this situation unfolds."

The company also created a COVID-19 Resource Center for workers to access and learn more about what the company is doing regarding the crisis. Other recent measure the company added include sick pay, bonuses, increased ways to make additional money through a tip platform and batch promotions, and pre-opening and post-closing hours for shoppers for safer social distancing.