2. Crowd provides recipes
Supermarkets connect to and feedback, creates
Yummly, order goods groups based on
directly with Google locale, interest, skill level
Checkout; check inventory
in local store in real time;
guide with maps
Provide Integrate digital
checkout, integrate with kitchen technologies
G+, Glass (fridge, scales, mixer)

3. Food sites are getting billions on monthly views. People have been cookin’ since
the late Pleistocene age, so it’s a fairly enduring activity. People have been
eating even longer than that. IN addition, cooking and eating are fairly
recession-resistant activities, and generally end only at death.
What’s in this for Google?
Food is even more addictive than email and an iPhone. If you can own the
kitchen, you own a major, major, part of human activity. This dwarfs space flight
or augmented reality, which Google has been promoting. The kitchen is a
source of massive potential synergies for Google: own the supermarket
ordering and checkout process; know eating habits and data (how about
advertising some anti-cholesterol meds or exercise coupons… scary data
implications, I know). Beverages and other very high margin products can be
owned through the kitchen. And this is an area in which some major efficiencies
need to be found. Rice cookers and microwavs have taken us about as far as
they can, and are the only material innovation in 25 years. The rest will be
digital and Google needs to own it.
Some food sites that Google wishes it owned: Foodnetwork.com, Recipezaar.com, Allrecipes.com,
Epicurious.com