Grocery chain Albertsons is looking to capture recipe hunters on Pinterest and drive them from Idea Pins to checkout. 

As part of a multi-year agreement between the two companies, recipe pins will be made shoppable by integrating saved pins into Albertsons' app. Users of the app can connect to their Pinterest account and shop their recent recipe pins. Shoppers will then be able to add ingredients for a recipe to their Albertsons app cart in one click. The integration will also recommend what consumers should make based on past searches, saves, and purchase history. 

Albertsons also turned 20 of its associates into Pinterest creators, including a master meat griller, a certified sommelier, a patisserie expert, and a mom who has mastered meal prepping. The associates-turned-creators will use Pinterest’s Idea Pins, the video-centric format that mimics Instagram Stories. 

Albertsons and Pinterest are also working on creating interactive, shoppable tablescapes to show Pinterest users how an ingredient, like carrots, can be used in multiple recipes, even taking into account dietary restrictions.

“Solving the age-old question of ‘what’s for dinner?’ is something that we’ve been determined to simplify for our customers,” Chris Rupp, exec VP and chief customer and digital officer at Albertsons, said in a statement. “We want to meet them where they are while making the experience easy and enjoyable, and our partnership with Pinterest is just one more way Albertsons is creatively looking to continue our connections with customers as a food authority.” 

The deal comes amid rapidly changing shopper habits. Started out of necessity in pandemic lockdowns, grocery shoppers have grown accustomed to the ease and convenience of online grocery delivery. U.S. digital grocery sales are expected to reach $122.39 billion in 2021, up from $66.5 billion in 2019, according to an August report by eMarketer. U.S. digital grocery sales are also forecasted to nearly double by 2025 to $243.67 billion. But with those online orderers no longer pursuing real-life grocery store isles for inspiration, Pinterest has become one avenue for discovering recipes.

Albertsons has worked with several other companies in the past year to tap into these online consumers. In June 2021, DoorDash and Albertsons released In The Bag, a Tetris-like game where users could get up to $40-off their Albertsons order. In August, Albertsons provided the snacks for DoorDash's back to school backpacks. Most recently, Albertsons turned to livestream shopping using tech platform Firework. The short, shoppable videos are about 30 seconds long, and will start appearing on Albertsons’ websites in mid-October. 

Albertsons’ is forecasted to do $6 billion in online grocery sales this year, up from $1.4 billion in 2019. Still, the grocer still has a ways to go to catch up with other grocer giants. Walmart currently commands the leading share of digital grocery sales in the U.S. with 28.9% of market share, followed by Amazon (23.8%), Kroger (12.3%), Target (4.9%), and Albertsons (4.9%), according to September report by eMarketer. 

“At 4:00 p.m. every day, the number one food search on Pinterest is what’s for dinner, and Albertsons Cos. is delivering inspiring and intuitive experiences that help our Pinners answer that question every day,” Pinterest’s chief revenue officer Jon Kaplan, said in a statement. “Albertson’s forward-looking use of Pinterest only solidifies the critical role that online grocery inspiration will continue to play in the consumer journey. We’re thrilled to see how the team is creating quality content through multiple channels, from our API and AI innovations, to our burgeoning Creator ecosystem.”