Giant Food is launching a partnership with Upside, a cash-back marketplace platform, to reach new shoppers and recapture market share as customers increasingly spread their grocery spending across multiple retailers.
The collaboration pairs the mid-Atlantic’s largest grocer by market share with a Washington, D.C.-based technology company that delivers personalized cash-back offers designed to drive incremental store visits.
The Shelby Report recently caught up with Ryan Draude, head of loyalty and shopper marketing for Giant Food, and Nick Worswick, president of retail go-to-market for Upside, to learn more about the partnership.
“In our goal to be able to grow market share, to provide value, but to really focus on differentiation as a way to make us stand out in a very competitive grocery environment, this is a relationship that we coveted and are very eager to launch here shortly,” Draude said.
Targeting fragmented shopping behavior
Giant Food, which operates 163 locations and is celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2026, is responding to shifting consumer
behavior as shoppers divide their grocery spending among more retailers.
“We’re seeing shoppers spread out their trips more than ever before,” Draude said. “Before, they were giving us most of their basket; we’re starting to see them go to different places for a variety of different reasons. But value is paramount.”
Data from Upside indicates the average shopper now visits 4.8 different grocery banners in a given month.
“There is a reason why those shoppers are shopping at those 4.8 places every month,” Worswick said. “Could be that they have to drive too far. Could be that the price on paper towels that week isn’t exactly what they want.”
The Upside platform aims to consolidate that fragmented demand by directing customers to Giant Food stores through targeted cash-back incentives.
How the platform works
Upside operates as a two-sided marketplace connecting about 35 million consumers nationwide with participating retailers across grocery, restaurant and fuel categories. The company was founded in the fuel industry before expanding to other retail sectors.
Consumers download the Upside app and receive personalized cash-back offers based on their past purchasing behavior and other variables determined through artificial intelligence-powered algorithms. When users select an offer and complete a transaction at a Giant location, Upside’s system analyzes whether that trip represents incremental sales.
“We assign each basket, each shopper, a control group,” Worswick said. “That control group is a group of people that are not Upside users. So at every step of the way, those shoppers that are using our cash-back offer have to outperform the control group in order to be deemed verifiably incremental.”
Risk-free model for retailers
Unlike traditional promotional programs, Upside charges retailers only when it can verify that a transaction was incremental – meaning the retailer wouldn’t have captured that sale otherwise.
“If we cannot prove that trip, that basket that follows is verifiably incremental, Upside pays for the promotion,” Worswick said.
The company describes the arrangement as “effectively no risk” for retail partners because Upside absorbs the cost of promotions that fail to generate incremental sales.
Only when incrementality is verified does Upside share in the profit from the transaction. Consumers receive their cash-back rewards regardless of who pays for the promotion.
“You sort of call it a triple win,” Worswick said. “It’s very good for Giant. These transactions are very incremental. It’s very good for the consumer, because they get their cash back regardless. It’s good for Upside.”
Reaching customers where they are
For Giant Foods, the partnership represents an expansion beyond traditional marketing channels to reach younger generations and digitally engaged shoppers. 
“We live in a very attention-fragmented time, and especially with the generations yet to come, trying to reach them and get their attention, to consider where to shop and to really drive that value proposition is critical,” Draude said.
“We have our channels to be able to reach folks from a traditional perspective, but we’re also being honest with ourselves that we need to consider, again, where our customers are.”
Draude emphasized the local connection between the two companies, both rooted in the Washington, D.C., area, as a factor in the partnership decision. He noted that Upside has built “a very robust community in the D.C. area” that aligns with Giant Foods’ customer base.
Driving in-store traffic
Unlike digital-first strategies that may cannibalize in-store sales, the Upside model specifically directs customers to Giant’s physical locations.
“Unlike a lot of other things that you see out there that are technology enabled, we actually drive consumers into those stores,” said Worswick, describing Giant’s brick-and-mortar footprint as “their crown jewel” and noting the company has spent 90-plus years “building out” that store network as its primary asset.
Draude said the partnership addresses feedback from customers who express loyalty to Giant Food but also seek the best value across multiple retailers.
“What I’ve often heard is that they love Giant and they want to shop with us, but they also want to find the best value,” he said. “So we need to rise to the occasion, and that means being nimble, thinking outside the box, looking at opportunities where we can reach those folks and hopefully build that value proposition.”
The platform ensures all Upside app users receive a cash-back offer when shopping at Giant Food, creating consistent value propositions for participating consumers.
“What I love is that everyone does get an offer,” Draude said, explaining that the partnership helps Giant recapture a “higher share wallet” from customers who have divided their grocery spending among multiple retailers.
[RELATED: Upside Report Highlights Consumer Spend Across Multiple Retailers]