Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America, today announced a new advertising initiative, committing up to $1 million to amplify Black-owned consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands within the Instacart marketplace. This marks Instacart’s first program designed to support emerging Black-owned brands directly within the Instacart marketplace by leveraging the company’s robust advertising products and services. Today, Instacart Ads offers self-service and managed ad services for more than 2,500 CPG brands of all sizes, helping them connect with customers in the digital aisles while online grocery shopping.

Through this new initiative, Instacart is offering Black-owned CPG brands the opportunity to reach a broader audience in the digital aisles with prominent advertising placement among millions of items available from the more than 600 national, regional and local retailers, and unique brand names, featured on the Instacart marketplace. Eligible brands will receive Instacart Ads credits to use with the company’s flagship Featured Products offering throughout 2021. As part of the initiative, Instacart is also establishing new resources for brands, including a designated team focused on supporting participating brands and a monthly training series to ensure brands maximize the impact of their advertising campaigns.

“As the largest online grocery platform in North America, our marketplace features millions of products for customers to discover while they shop online from their favorite retailers. As our service grows, we believe Instacart has a unique opportunity to further amplify Black-owned and Black-led brand partners in the digital aisles,” said Seth Dallaire, Chief Revenue Officer at Instacart. “We want Instacart Ads to make a lasting impact on the CPG ecosystem by equipping emerging Black-owned brands with the tools, resources and investment needed to excel in online grocery. This is just a first step as we continue to focus on delivering equitable outcomes for historically underrepresented entrepreneurs and brands and create more opportunities for more companies to flourish.”

Instacart Ads offers a full suite of advertising products anchored around Featured Product, including Delivery Promotions, Coupons and Hero Banners. The Featured Product offering gives brand partners premium digital shelf space with browse, discovery and search placements in high visibility areas across the Instacart marketplace. With Featured Product, advertisers can boost sales, increase trial and awareness, drive higher category share and manage campaigns in a self-service portal.

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“We’re always looking for partners that align with our mission to inspire families of all backgrounds to eat better food and live longer, more vibrant lives. It’s important for us to connect and engage with customers in various ways – especially in the digital grocery aisles. We’re proud to partner on this new advertising initiative and see Instacart investing in a community of brands transforming the grocery industry.” – Ibraheem Basir, Founder and CEO, A Dozen Cousins

“Food is an integral part of culture and identity, and part of our mission with Capital City is to share a taste of Washington, D.C. with consumers across America. We’re looking forward to partnering with Instacart to broaden our reach and engage with even more people in the digital aisles. We’re excited to see this investment to amplify the innovative work Black-owned brands are doing in the CPG food industry.” – Arsha Jones, Founder, Capital City

“I am excited to build upon our partnership with Instacart through this initiative. To create systemic diversity, equity and inclusiveness within the CPG food and beverage space, it’s imperative that more companies show this kind of action-oriented support to underrepresented founders. I’m grateful that Instacart is taking this step and hope it inspires even more companies with similar platforms to follow.” – Denise Woodard, Founder and CEO, Partake Foods

“It’s encouraging to see companies within the grocery industry invest in Black-owned brands at scale. As a founder, I know that it can be extremely costly to start a CPG business, especially in the world of distilling, and initiatives like Instacart’s can help reduce systemic barriers to entry for brands to grow new audiences and thrive online. At a company level, Uncle Nearest consistently invests in the entrepreneurial community, and we’re looking forward to joining a group of BIPOC-owned brands to reach more people in Instacart’s digital aisles.” – Fawn Weaver, Founder and CEO, Uncle Nearest

Today’s announcement builds on Instacart’s ongoing commitment to prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Belonging and stand up against anti-Blackness and systemic racism by intentionally lifting up Black businesses within the Instacart marketplace.

At Instacart, Diversity, Equity and Belonging encompasses everything from increasing representation, career development and opportunities, to social impact initiatives uplifting our communities, and ensuring we’re designing products that are accessible to everyone.

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