In my last article, I argued that DoorDash doesn’t have to acquire Instacart but that it likely will. I first recommended DoorDash or Uber to acquire Instacart in 2020. I’m not surprised that DoorDash wants to acquire Instacart in 2026.

If DoorDash buys Instacart, the question changes. It’s no longer whether DoorDash should buy Instacart. It’s what DoorDash must do next to make a $17 billion deal worth the price.

My answer: call Ocado. Then build everything Instacart refused to build. This article lays out exactly what DoorDash can do with Instacart, and what I believe it will do.

What DoorDash would own

With Instacart, DoorDash would control the largest third-party fulfillment and delivery network in the United States and across much of Europe:

• DoorDash: 970 million orders in Q2 2026, up 27% from a year earlier, across restaurants, grocery, convenience and retail.
• Deliveroo: acquired in 2025 for $3.9 billion, giving DoorDash the UK and much of Europe.
• Wolt: Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
• DashMart: more than 100 dark stores, where DoorDash has owned and sold its own inventory since 2020.
• Instacart: the deepest relationships with grocers of any delivery company, and about 58% of U.S. grocery delivery through third-party platforms in 2025, according to an eMarketer forecast. It also brings the Instacart+ membership program and the technology it sells to grocers, including its Storefront e-commerce platform and Caper smart carts.

Only Amazon and Walmart, which run their own networks, would be comparable. But one capability is missing from all of it: automation.

The missing piece

Nearly every grocery order in Instacart’s network, and most of DoorDash’s, is picked by hand. A shopper walks the aisles and fills a cart one order at a time.

That model is running out of room. Online grocery reached a record 20.9% of U.S. grocery spending in Q3 2026, according to Brick Meets Click, and online sales grew 21%. I expect online to reach 25% to 30% of grocery sales by 2030. No grocer can run that volume through shoppers walking store aisles.

Grocers are looking for automation. Instacart never offered it. As I argued in my last article, its refusal to own inventory, a rule its executives called their “red line,” left fulfillment to grocers and their stores. Instacart never built or offered the automated fulfillment grocers now need.

That creates a problem for DoorDash. Many grocers work with Instacart precisely because it is not DoorDash. After an acquisition, they will be looking for reasons to leave. DoorDash needs to give them a reason to stay. Automation is that reason.

Why Ocado

Ocado is the company best positioned to supply it.

• It has the right product. Ocado’s store-based automation fits in 4,000 to 5,000 square feet inside or beside an existing store and holds about 20,000 products. Ocado says it makes sense for stores with about $5 million a year in online sales.
• It fits DashMart. A DashMart launched with about 2,000 items in 5,600 to 11,000 square feet. Ocado’s system could turn a convenience-sized dark store into a grocery store in the same footprint.
• It works where volume is there. Coles in Australia reported both of its Ocado fulfillment centers EBITDA positive in their second year, and it is now in talks to trial Ocado’s in-store system in Melbourne.
• It is available. Ocado’s exclusive U.S. agreement with Kroger ended at the end of 2025.
• It needs a partner. Kroger is closing three Ocado fulfillment centers and agreed to pay Ocado $350 million. Sobeys is closing one in Canada. Ocado expects an underlying cash outflow of about £200 million this year, excluding closure costs, and has promised to be cash-flow positive for the full year in fiscal 2027.

DoorDash needs automation. Ocado needs volume in the United States. That is the basis of a deal.

Why DoorDash shouldn’t buy Ocado

At a market value of about $2.9 billion in early October, buying Ocado outright is tempting. It would be a mistake.

• Ocado’s value depends on staying neutral. Its revenue comes from grocers that license its technology, including Kroger, Coles, Sobeys and Asda, which signed in May 2026 to go live in early 2027. A DoorDash that owns Instacart and sells its own groceries through DashMart competes with them. Owning their technology supplier would push them to look elsewhere.
• It is still losing money. Ocado reported a net loss of about $336 million over the past twelve months.
• It owns half of a UK grocer. Ocado Retail, its joint venture with Marks & Spencer, competes with the grocers that sell through Deliveroo.
• The deals would stack up. Deliveroo, SevenRooms for $1.2 billion, Instacart at $17 billion and then Ocado would add integration risk, balance sheet strain and a longer antitrust review.

DoorDash doesn’t need to own Ocado. It needs the rights to Ocado’s store-based automation.

Why DoorDash can’t simply buy the technology

Ocado’s store-based system is not a separate business. It runs on the same robots, grid and software as the rest of Ocado’s platform, which its other partners also use. Ocado would sell that core only at a price that makes buying the whole company the better deal.

What DoorDash can buy is the rights: an exclusive license. There is a precedent. In 2018, Kroger signed an exclusive U.S. agreement with Ocado. It bought a 5% stake in Ocado for £183 million, about $247.5 million at the time, and committed to at least 20 automated fulfillment centers. Its exclusivity depended on hitting volume targets, with compensation owed to Ocado if it fell short. Only eight centers were built.

DoorDash should learn from both halves of that deal: the structure, and what went wrong.

The deal

I would propose a DoorDash and Ocado automation partnership built on seven terms:

1. An exclusive U.S. license for third-party fulfillment. DoorDash gets the exclusive right to deploy Ocado’s store-based system for grocers that fulfill through DoorDash or Instacart, and in its own DashMarts. The license could extend to Deliveroo and Wolt markets where Ocado has no exclusive partner.
2. A carve-out for grocers that automate themselves. Any grocer can still license the system directly from Ocado and run it in its own stores. The exclusivity covers only third-party fulfillment. Ocado needs that, because Walmart, Kroger, H-E-B and Ahold Delhaize are its biggest U.S. prospects. It also lowers antitrust risk, because no grocer is forced to go through DoorDash to automate.
3. A joint venture that sells automation as a service. Ocado contributes the license and the engineering. DoorDash contributes capital, sites, demand and operations. Grocers pay a fee on each order instead of buying the equipment. DoorDash manages the sites, guarantees every order is fulfilled and makes the delivery. The grocer keeps its inventory, prices and brand.
4. Minimum deployment commitments. Ocado will not grant exclusivity without guaranteed volume. DoorDash should commit to a number of sites over several years, and lose exclusivity if it misses the targets. That protects Ocado and keeps DoorDash disciplined.
5. Economics that fit both sides. An upfront payment for exclusivity, a fee for each site and a royalty on every order. The upfront payment helps Ocado reach its cash-flow goal. The royalty ties Ocado’s income to DoorDash’s success.
6. An equity stake and a right of first refusal. A minority stake, like Kroger’s in 2018, aligns the two companies. A right of first refusal means no rival, including Amazon, Uber or Walmart, can buy Ocado without DoorDash having the chance to match the offer.
7. Clear rules for sites that underperform. When Kroger closed three centers, it agreed to pay Ocado $350 million. The agreement should define in advance when a site closes and what it costs, so neither side is surprised.

What each side gets

DoorDash gets:

• An answer for Instacart’s grocers. They get the automation Instacart never offered, and a reason to stay after the acquisition.
• Bigger DashMarts. Dark stores grow from a few thousand items to a full grocery assortment in the same space.
• A lead its competitors can’t match. Uber and every other third-party delivery company are locked out of Ocado’s store-based system.
• A clean balance sheet. DoorDash avoids Ocado’s losses and its UK joint venture.

Ocado gets:

• Guaranteed volume in the United States, through the largest grocery delivery network in the country.
• Cash when it needs it, from the upfront payment and site fees.
• Its direct path to grocers that want to run the system themselves, through the carve-out.
• A partner with every reason to deploy where volume justifies it, using demand data no single grocer has.

The last mile

Automation solves the cost of picking an order. It does not solve the cost of delivering it. Here, too, a combined DoorDash would start with an advantage no one else has: millions of Dashers, Instacart shoppers, and Deliveroo and Wolt riders. The next step is to add a fleet DoorDash owns.

Waymo has already shown how. It is importing thousands of purpose-built electric minivans made by Zeekr, a brand of China’s Geely, and is on track for about 5,000 by the end of 2026. The vans arrive as the basic vehicle only: body, battery and electric drivetrain, with no sensors and no Chinese connectivity software. Waymo installs its own autonomous driving system in Arizona, which it says keeps it compliant with the Commerce Department’s rule on Chinese connected-vehicle technology. Even after U.S. tariffs of 102.5%, the vehicle and its self-driving hardware are estimated at about $103,000, roughly half the cost of Waymo’s earlier vehicles.

DoorDash can partner with Waymo, and it already is: in October 2025, it began piloting deliveries with Waymo’s driverless vehicles in Phoenix, starting with DashMart orders. But I believe DoorDash will build a program like Waymo’s that it owns and operates exclusively:

• Purpose-built delivery vans. Low-cost electric vans designed for groceries and meals, with temperature-controlled compartments, built to DoorDash’s specifications and imported without sensors or connectivity software.
• Its own integration plant. A U.S. facility where DoorDash installs the autonomous driving system, sensors and software, as Waymo does in Arizona.
• Its own driving system. DoorDash would need to license or acquire one. That is the hardest piece, and the one that decides whether the fleet is truly DoorDash’s.
• A closed loop with automation. Vans load at automated DashMarts and Ocado-powered sites, so an order is picked by robots and delivered without a driver.
• Its own robots for the last few feet. A driverless van still needs something to carry the order from the curb to the door. DoorDash already builds its own robots: in October 2025, DoorDash Labs unveiled Dot, an in-house delivery robot that travels up to 20 miles per hour on bike lanes, roads, sidewalks and driveways, dispatched by an AI system that assigns each order to a Dasher, a drone or a robot. I believe DoorDash will go further, with robots that ride in its vans and carry orders to the door, possibly humanoid robots.

Amazon is already preparing for this. In March 2026, I reported that Amazon is collecting data from delivery drivers wearing its smart glasses and using that data to train humanoid robots that will eventually ride in autonomous Rivian vans and make deliveries. Amazon describes the glasses, unveiled in October 2025, as tools for navigation and proof of delivery, and it has not confirmed the training purpose. But every delivery they record captures how a driver approaches a porch, opens a gate and climbs a stairwell, exactly the data a delivery robot needs to learn. DoorDash has the same opportunity on a larger scale: nearly 4 billion orders a year. Because Dashers are independent contractors, any program to capture that data would need to be voluntary and paid. Done right, it would give DoorDash the training data for its own robots.

This is vertical integration. Amazon is pursuing it. Uber is not; it partners for autonomy. A DoorDash that owns the automation that picks the order, the van that carries it and the robot that walks it to the door would control the full cost of an order, from shelf to doorstep.

The next big thing in food

The largest opportunity in food is not delivering groceries faster. It is delivering prepared meals at a price lower than what it costs consumers to buy the ingredients and cook the meals themselves.

I first made this argument in Forbes on August 9, 2018, in “The Startup Using Robots To Cook Pizza,” about Zume, whose CEO I advised. That same year, I named Walmart, Kroger and Schwan’s as the companies best positioned to deliver hot, cooked meals directly to customers. Today, a DoorDash that owns Instacart would be better positioned than any of them.

The economics work because a household cooking at home is the least efficient food system there is. It buys ingredients at retail prices, buys more than it needs, throws some of it away, and spends its own time shopping, cooking and cleaning. A central kitchen that buys at wholesale, uses every ingredient, cooks in volume and delivers efficiently can beat that cost per meal. DoorDash with Instacart would have every piece needed to do it:

• Demand data. DoorDash knows what customers order from restaurants. Instacart knows what they buy to cook at home. Together, they would know what to cook, how much and where, and that is what keeps waste low.
• Ingredient costs. Buying at wholesale, at the combined scale of DoorDash and Instacart, and through its own private label, DoorDash would pay far less for ingredients than any household.
• Automated kitchens. Robotic kitchens located alongside automated DashMarts and Ocado-powered sites would cook in volume, at a consistent quality, with fewer workers.
• Delivery density. Meals ride in the same autonomous vans as groceries, in heated and refrigerated compartments, so each delivery costs less.
• A weekly meal plan built into DashPass would turn occasional orders into a recurring habit.

DoorDash can build this itself or accelerate it. As I have recommended before, it should assess Wonder, which is building automated kitchen technology for exactly this market. A partnership would come first; an acquisition makes sense only once Instacart is integrated.

If DoorDash can deliver a dinner for less than the cost of shopping for it, it stops competing with restaurants and grocers for a share of the food dollar. It competes with the home kitchen itself.

The Ripple Effect

Put the pieces together and the effects spread well beyond Instacart.

• DoorDash would offer orders, automated fulfillment, delivery and advertising from one partner. Grocers that can’t build these themselves would have a reason to depend on DoorDash. Grocers that can would face a competitor with more data than any of them.
• Private label. This is where DoorDash could become far larger than a delivery company. Once DashMart carries a full grocery assortment and DoorDash cooks its own meals, it can sell its own brands across nearly 4 billion orders a year at its current pace, spanning restaurants, grocery and convenience. It knows what customers buy, what they substitute and what they search for and can’t find. That is the information a retailer needs to decide which private-label products to launch, and DoorDash would have it before any grocer does.
• Consumer brands. DoorDash would become one of the most important channels for consumer brands, as a seller, an advertiser and a competitor through its own private label. Brands would pay more to be seen, and they would have to compete with DoorDash’s products in DoorDash’s own app.
• Every new order adds to DoorDash’s ad business. Adding Fetch, through a partnership or an acquisition, would let DoorDash show brands that its ads drive sales in physical stores, not just in its app.
• Uber would fall further behind in grocery, with no Instacart and no partner for automated fulfillment.
• Amazon and Walmart. For the first time, they would face a third national competitor in online grocery with the scale, automation and delivery network to match them.

Is DoorDash becoming an American Meituan?

Yes, and the comparison explains where this is heading.

Meituan built China’s largest food delivery business and then expanded into grocery. It runs nearly 1,000 Little Elephant Supermarket stores in 20 cities, and in February 2026 it agreed to buy the China business of Dingdong, an online grocer built on front-end warehouses, for an initial $717 million. Meituan has completed 740,000 drone deliveries and nearly 5 million deliveries by autonomous ground vehicles, and it has taken its delivery business abroad under its Keeta brand, including the Middle East.

DoorDash is following the same path: restaurants first, then convenience and grocery through DashMart, then international expansion through Deliveroo and Wolt, with autonomous delivery and advertising layered on top. Instacart would give it the grocery scale Meituan is buying with Dingdong. Ocado would give it the automation.

The difference is the environment. DoorDash faces stricter rules on drones, autonomous vehicles and gig work, closer antitrust scrutiny, and in Walmart and Amazon, two competitors with far deeper roots in grocery than any Meituan rival had. DoorDash can become an American Meituan, but it will have to do it on American terms: partnerships instead of further acquisitions where regulators are watching, U.S. technology where Chinese technology is restricted, and automation where Meituan could draw on a larger, lower-cost labor pool.

The playbook in eleven moves

Here is what DoorDash can do, and what I believe it will do, if it acquires Instacart:

1. Pay a price that reflects the risk. Instacart’s value is in its grocery relationships and its ad business, and both depend on grocers staying.
2. Combine DashPass and Instacart+. A single membership across restaurants, groceries, convenience and meals would be the largest delivery membership in the United States.
3. Combine the tools it sells to grocers. Instacart’s e-commerce and in-store technology plus DoorDash’s delivery service would give grocers one platform to run their entire online business.
4. Secure exclusive rights to Ocado’s store-based automation, and sell automation to grocers as a service.
5. Turn DashMarts into grocery stores, with automation, wholesale supply and a full assortment.
6. Launch private label across grocery, convenience and prepared meals.
7. Deliver prepared meals for less than the cost of cooking at home.
8. Build an autonomous fleet it owns, with purpose-built vans, its own integration plant and its own driving system.
9. Put its own robots in those vans, trained on data from billions of deliveries.
10. Grow the ad business, with Fetch to prove its ads drive sales in stores.
11. Take the model abroad through Deliveroo and Wolt, with partners such as Pony.ai where U.S. rules don’t apply.

The bottom line

If DoorDash pays as much as $17 billion for Instacart, it buys relationships with grocers that will have every reason to leave. A partnership with Ocado gives them a reason to stay.

With Deliveroo, Wolt, DashMart, Instacart, Ocado’s automation and a last-mile network that blends people and autonomous vehicles, DoorDash would offer grocers something no company in the United States can: orders, automated fulfillment, delivery and advertising, from a single partner. Add private label and prepared meals priced below the cost of cooking at home, and DoorDash stops being a delivery company. It becomes the closest thing America has to Meituan.

Instacart drew a red line and left automation on the other side of it. If DoorDash buys Instacart, its first move should be to cross it.

Disclaimer: This article is my analysis and opinion as an industry analyst, written in good faith on a matter of public interest. Factual statements are drawn from public sources, including company announcements, financial results and published news reports. The partnership described here is my recommendation; I am not aware of any discussions between DoorDash and Ocado.

I am committed to accuracy. If anyone named in this article, or anyone with direct knowledge, believes a statement of fact is incorrect, I invite them to contact me. Any verified factual error will be promptly corrected and noted.