Local entrepreneurs’ app Zest designed for small, midsize groceries

Two Spokane entrepreneurs have developed a mobile app to help small and midsize food stores reach more customers.

Large grocery chains like Safeway and Kroger are using stylish and expensively produced apps to help shoppers find deals.

But smaller food stores typically don’t have the means to create that type of mobile tool, said Fletcher Wilkens, one of the two men behind the new app Zest.

Wilkens, 27, joined forces with Dustin Horn, 25, in forming SlickGrocer, the Spokane company that’s developing the Zest shopping app.

This is their first business venture.

The two met in high school, then both attended Walla Walla University, a Seventh-day Adventist college. While there they hatched the idea of a food-shopping app that would reach customers who are looking for deals or hard-to-find ingredients and items.

They launched the Zest app in January, with three food stores signed up so far: Hay J’s Butcher Block in Liberty Lake; Asian World Food Market, on North Division Street; and Lam’s Seafood Market, in Seattle.

It’s currently available for Android and an iOS version is in the works. The stores upload an inventory of products to the Zest database. Customers can search for products and prepare shopping lists for store visits. The stores are able to push promotions to customers to call attention to new or reduced-price food items.

Over time the plan is for Zest to include more store coupons and even suggested recipes to boost consumer interest, Horn said.

Their company makes money based on a monthly subscription paid by the stores. It currently offers a 90-day free trial for stores to sign up.

For consumers the app is free to download and use.

So far Horn and Wilkens are focused on building a following among retailers.

Because their company is in early-growth stage, Horn and Wilkens declined to release numbers on how often the app has been downloaded.

They’re not yet profitable.

They see the app as having broader appeal than just the Washington market.

Jim Schlosser, who’s helped several startups gain success (including North Idaho tech company Pacinian Corp., bought by Bay Area firm Synaptics in 2012), is an adviser to Wilkens and Horn.

He said the app’s potential is solid but it needs more customers and stores.

“The challenge is getting a local retailer with a brand name on board to use the product as they continue to beta the software,” Schlosser said.

“Their efforts have been excellent and they have tons of passion. The two of them wear many hats and are certainly under-resourced as many startups are. They continue to learn from their target market and are skilled enough to adjust or pivot the platform offerings accordingly,” Schlosser said.

For instance, Horn and Wilkens originally designed the app for the consumer as the primary paying customer. “Then we switched to the retailer and offered the app free for consumers,” Horn said. “We feel both are important.”

Joy Kang, owner of Asian World Food Market, has seen a slow but growing use of Zest among some customers.

“I’m not good with technology,” said Kang, “so I thought I should try this app, after Fletcher contacted me.”

She has noticed a few calls to her market, which stocks wide ranges of Asian food products, come from people who have used the app. “They check and see (what we have) and then come in and buy them,” she said. Other customers might be using the app but she’d never know, she added.

Early on, Horn and Wilkens found many grocery store owners believe they should have a distinct shopping app just for their store. But the research done by Wilkens and Horn actually suggests single-store mobile apps are generally not popular among shoppers.

That is why they’re convinced a one-app-fits-many-stores approach can be a market success, Wilkens said.

The research Horn found said 76 percent of customers shop at five or more stores for groceries. Consumers generally don’t want multiple apps on their phones, Horn said.

They also researched nearly 30 single-store grocery apps available for Android phones. They found those apps were downloaded only 85 times on average.

Wilkens said Zest can help foodies find specialty food items and discover new retailers in the process.

“What customers have told us is that specialty and hard-to-find products do influence their shopping decisions. We think that providing a way to locate those products easily will be a boon to those product categories, and the stores who sell them,” he said.