Instacart Reveals Top (and Bottom) Most All American Cities
As we celebrate our country’s independence, we thought it was the perfect time to look a little closer at the cities Instacart serves and get a sense for whose carts are filled with the most “all American” foods. We expect some fireworks this Fourth of July as we reveal the top (and bottom) All American eaters.
In celebration of Independence Day, Instacart has created our first-ever All American Index. We looked at the search trends leading up to the big day, so we could see who is most likely to search for all American favorites.
First, we looked at nationwide data. We saw some clear trends in the week of the 4th:
- Fire is so Hot: Searches for “wood chips” went up 543% from the week before.
- Great American Bake Off: We’re not just eating pie, we’re making it from scratch! Searches for “Pie Pan” grew 500% from the previous week. “Sugar cookie dough” searches were up 450%.
- Patriots Abound: In terms of pure volume, “4th July” and “Red White Blue” were top-searched among our All American index terms — the themes of thousands of backyard barbecues across the country.
In addition to trends nationwide, we decided to use the ten most all American foods terms to create an “All American Index” to help us determine which were our top (and bottom) most All American cities. The foods we looked at were: Potato salad, pie, hot dogs, potato chips, steak, corn, soda, and coke.
Cities who boasted the biggest bump in All American searches get ranked high on the index, those who were more “business as usual” fell to the bottom.
Top Five Most All American Cities:
#1 Austin: Everything’s bigger in Texas — including the orders of All American foods. Austin came in #1 on our index.
#2 San Francisco: The summer of love has nothing on this summer’s barbecues in the City by the Bay.
#3 Chicago: The city of big shoulders has a patriotic center.
#4 Los Angeles: Big dreams, lots of sunshine, and an All American rep, #4 on our list.
#5 Washington DC: The city’s capital just squeaks into the top five on our list.
Bottom Five Least All American Cities:
#5 Houston: the Magnolia city leads up our bottom five list of All American cities.
#4 Minneapolis: Sorry, Charlie Brown, you’re only #4 on our least All American cities list.
#3 Miami: the city may be the epitome of summer spirit, but it didn’t climb out of the lower five on our index.
#2 Boston: Boston may have lost its edge since its famous Tea Party — it’s the second lowest ranking city on our index.
#1 Indianapolis: It may be smack in the heartland, but it’s at the bottom of our All American Cities index.
Here’s our full listing:
Of course, we think this is a good reminder for you to order your own cart full of All American favorites this year, and get it delivered on the same day.
Methodology Statement:
We examined the change in Instacart user behavior by comparing growth adjusted week over week changes in the popularity of various search terms. We used a data set comprised of millions of searches from consumers spread over the 18 US states in which Instacart operates. Our results are focused on the terms that have experienced the strongest relative rise in customer interest in the week of July 4.
