Crafty vs Instacart

Supporting diverse suppliers shouldn't be left to chance or buried in a product catalog. While Instacart may offer some diverse brands, it’s up to you to find them, verify them, and figure out if they’re making an impact on your employees.

At Crafty, diversity is intentionally built into how we source, recommend, and showcase the products in your pantry. From the platform to the people behind it, we help you turn DEI goals into everyday decisions across every location.

How Crafty Supports Diversity Through Your Pantry Program:

• Find Diverse Products Fast: Our platform tags minority-owned, women-owned, and underrepresented brands so you can easily select and prioritize them in your pantry program.
• Track & Measure Your Impact: Our system allows you to filter inventory and data to see how your purchasing supports diverse suppliers.
• Always Bringing in New Diverse Brands: We are constantly on the lookout for emerging, underrepresented brands to bring into your space, ensuring your program stays fresh, inclusive, and aligned with your DEI goals.

With Crafty, diversity isn’t just a statement; it’s built into how we operate. Our platform gives you full control, visibility, and flexibility to ensure your food and beverage program aligns with your DEI initiatives in a real and measurable way.

Instacart may offer access to sustainable products, but it’s up to you to find them, order them, and figure out what’s actually making an impact. There’s no strategy, no tracking, and no built-in support to help you reduce waste at scale.

Crafty takes a more hands-on, integrated approach. Sustainability isn’t a side benefit; it’s baked into how we manage your pantry day to day. From reducing packaging to preventing overordering, our team and technology work together to help you build a smarter, greener program that aligns with your company’s values.

How Crafty Builds Sustainability Into Every Program:

• Use our Equipment Portfolio to Cut Down on Single-Use Packaging: We implement Bevi water machines, cold brew and kombucha kegs, and bulk snack dispensers to cut unnecessary packaging waste at the source.
• Minimize Waste Before It Happens: Unlike vendors that simply track waste, our technology prevents waste by using real-time consumption data to automate precise orders and reduce excess inventory.
• Help You Find and Report On Sustainable Brands and Products Inside Your Pantry: Our platform allows you to filter products by sustainability standards like B-Corp, vegan, and Fair Trade, ensuring your purchases align with your company’s values.
• Support Circular Economy Practices: Crafty can help you integrate TerraCycle recycling solutions to help divert snack wrappers, coffee pods, and packaging waste from landfills.

Learn More About Crafty's Sustainable Practices >

When you’re ordering through Instacart, the service stops at the doorstep. Boxes show up, but everything after that is on you. Someone on your team has to unpack, organize, stock shelves, troubleshoot issues, track what’s missing, and figure out what to order next.

Crafty takes a hands-on approach, with an expert service team that becomes an extension of your workplace. Our people don’t just deliver—they manage your pantry with care and consistency, using data, process, and attention to detail to keep things running smoothly.

Here’s what our onsite teams handle that Amazon never will:

• Stocking and organizing shelves so your space always looks clean, full, and delicious.
• Rotating product by expiration date using FEFO (First Expire, First Out) to minimize waste.
• Restocking and reordering essentials before they run out.
• Identifying slow-moving items and recommending smarter alternatives.
• Supporting pantry equipment through light maintenance and cleaning.
• Documenting every shift with photos and updates via The Crafty Platform.

It’s not just about delivering snacks; it’s about running a reliable, consistent program that supports your team and scales with you.

Instacart can work for small teams with simple needs, but once your workplace grows or you’re managing multiple offices, the cracks start to show. Here’s how you know it’s time to switch and how Crafty solves the challenges that come with scale:

Your team is stuck unpacking deliveries and restocking shelves.

• Why it’s a problem: It pulls your workplace team away from more strategic work and leads to inconsistent presentations across locations.
• The Crafty way: We do it for you—stocking, merchandising, and organization, so your pantry looks great and stays ready.

You’re manually placing every order across different teams and credit cards.

• Why it’s a problem: It’s time-consuming, error-prone, and impossible to scale without duplicating effort or losing track of what was ordered.
• The Crafty way: Crafty automates and centralizes ordering across all locations—so everything flows through one system, with full visibility and control.

You have little to no visibility into your total pantry spend.

• Why it’s a problem: You don’t realize you’re over budget until it’s too late, and reconciling purchases across locations becomes a finance headache.
• The Crafty way: The Crafty Platform tracks your budget in real time, shows you exactly where your dollars are going, and helps you adjust spending before it’s a problem.

You’re tracking inventory manually—or not at all.

• Why it’s a problem: You end up overordering things you already have and running out of the things your team actually wants. It leads to waste, frustration, and stockroom chaos.
• The Crafty way: Our onsite teams track inventory as they stock your shelves, and our platform prevents reordering products you don’t need—saving money and reducing waste.

You’re solving issues on your own—every time something’s out of stock or not working.

• Why it’s a problem: It’s reactive, stressful, and creates a poor experience for your team when things don’t go as planned.
• The Crafty way: We proactively manage your program—handling product swaps, restock prioritization, and equipment upkeep.

Bottom line: If you’re spending more time managing your pantry than enjoying it, it’s time to move to a partner who’s built for scale.

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This is like comparing apples to oranges.

Instacart was built for fast, consumer-style deliveries. Even with business features, fulfillment ends once your order is dropped off. Products arrive in multiple bags from different shoppers, often at different times, and your team is left to receive everything, unpack it, stock shelves, and keep track of what’s running low. There’s no coordination across locations, no visibility into what’s being used, and no support when something’s missing, damaged, or substituted. You’re essentially running your pantry program on your own with inconsistent fulfillment and a lot of manual work.

Crafty, on the other hand, was built to serve the workplace. Our entire supply chain was designed with office food programs in mind. We combine a curated fulfillment network with hands-on service and smart technology to deliver a complete, consistent pantry experience from end to end. Here’s how it works:

1. We work with national distributors and local brands to source the most unique, trending, and beloved products for you to choose from.
2. We partner with the best local operators to deliver those products on time to each of your locations.
3. Our on-the-ground teams make sure those items are stocked, organized, and merchandised to perfection.

Every order flows through the Crafty Platform, where it’s tracked, verified, and documented with delivery photos and shift updates. You’ll always know what was delivered, when it arrived, and how it was merchandised. That means fewer surprises, less waste, and a better experience for your team everywhere.

Instacart is good for ad hoc orders, but it isn’t built to manage a dynamic office pantry program. Even with business features, the work still falls on your team: tracking inventory, managing budgets, receiving and unpacking deliveries, stocking shelves, and keeping equipment running. And there’s no way to see what’s working, what’s wasted, or how your spending is trending until after the fact.

Crafty is built for workplaces. Our team of experts knows office food programs inside and out, from product preferences to flow, equipment, storage, and how consumption changes as teams grow and schedules shift. We combine that expertise with a platform designed specifically for workplace pantry programs so you can streamline ordering, optimize your product mix, and keep your pantry fully stocked without overbuying or overspending. Every update flows through the Crafty Platform, giving you real-time visibility into spend, deliveries, and on-the-ground operations like shelf stocking and inventory levels.

The difference? Instacart is a delivery service. Crafty is your partner with the people and platform built to run a consistent, cost-effective pantry program that scales with your workplace.