Basket, the Arlington-based grocery pricing app, has doubled its employee base in the last two months and is further expanding its team.
Some of the notable additions to Basket are Amira El-Gawly as vice president of community, Jason Rubinstein as vice president of finance, Brian Hoffner as director of sales, Kiran Devarakonda as lead engineer and Kyle Caston as the senior software engineer team lead.
El-Gawly has founded two other companies, including consulting firm Manifesta, which focuses on building corporate culture. Rubinstein was previously director of finance at Market in San Francisco.
Hoffner’s experience with D.C.-area startup UrbanStems as head of sales led him to Basket. Devarakonda has headed multiple teams as a software director at CoStar Group and the Association of American Medical Colleges. Caston also has experience with startups in his most recent position as the senior software engineer for Social Tables.
"Basket is moving full-speed ahead in bringing in the brightest and the best talent to our Arlington, Va.-based headquarters,” CEO and co-founder Neil Kataria said in a press release. "Amira, Jason, Brian, Kiran and Kyle offer that incredible range of experience, core skills and hard-charging hustle to help push Basket ahead as a force in the grocery industry.”
President and co-founder Andy Ellwood said Arlington offers a unique opportunity for the Basket team in the grocery industry.
“One of the interesting parts about Arlington is the number of different grocery stores represented here,” Ellwood said. “There’s a lot of retailers here, so there’s a lot of competition for the local market. As a result, there’s a lot of varying prices from one retailer to the next.”
With more than 800,000 downloads in the last five years, Basket compares grocery prices based on a user’s location. Ellwood said many consumers do not understand how frequently grocery retailers change their prices.
“We are equipping a community of shoppers to make sure that they never overpay again.”
According to the Food Market Institute’s U.S. Grocery Shopping Trends report, households with children under 18 spend an average of $169.19 on groceries each week. Households without children have a weekly grocery expense of $102.47.
“We found that with the same products across multiple grocery stores, there can be a difference of 30 to 40 percent on your entire basket of goods. That has a lot to do with the way that different brands and manufacturers range their relationships with retailers in any given week,” Ellwood said. “Most of the shoppers are left completely in the dark and shoppers are not able to keep up with the changes of the prices.”
The app allows users to create a grocery list and identify which stores have the lowest and highest prices. Users also can contribute and correct prices within the app while they shop.
“We wanted to use the power of the crowd to solve this pricing problem — to bring awareness to other shoppers when there are great prices and when there are abnormally high prices,” Ellwood said. “We are equipping a community of shoppers to make sure that they never overpay again.”
Basket users who contribute earn points which can be redeemed for cash. With enough contributions, users are asked to be Commerce Moderators for Basket and are compensated for the prices.
The company is continuing to expand its Arlington team and plans to hire more people throughout the year.
