Press Releases We (almost) Never Finished Reading Dept: Use technology to make a shopping list!

"Ikan is a revolutionary new way of shopping for groceries that will change your life!"

Oh, man, not again. Didn't this pitch die in 1950's newsreels?

But wait, is there maybe more here? Ikan is a scanner you put near the trash in your kitchen. As you throw stuff out, you scan its bar code. Then the service makes a list that it can auto-transmit to the grocery store. Very 1950, no?

People are going to keep banging their heads against the grocery business. But it's a very tough market (sorry). Margins are so incredibly low in grocery stores that it's almost impossible to get them to pony up for new consumer-facing technology. Logistics is where the real money is in the food chain.