Benchmarks / Food and drink / v2.0.3
Food and drink agentic commerce benchmark v2.0.3
This is version v2.0.3, issued 9 October 2026. The current version is v2.0.4.
Across 31 food and drink stores Ottom measured at every stage in the 90 days to 9 October 2026, the median agentic readiness score was 68 out of 100. 39% of them let an AI shopping agent reach the payment step.
n = 31 of 31 stores · 11 July 2026 to 9 October 2026 · v2.0.3 · bench-v5 · methodology
A store enters Ottom’s survey only if a catalogue of at least ten products can be read from it in one request, which in practice means Shopify and WooCommerce storefronts. These figures therefore describe the storefronts Ottom can read in bulk rather than food and drink as a whole. The methodology sets out what that excludes.
Readiness score
The median of the 31 food and drink stores Ottom measured at every stage in the 90 days to 9 October 2026 scored 68 out of 100, and a quarter of them scored 57 or below.
The spread of overall readiness scores across the category. We publish quartiles rather than a best and worst store, because the best and the worst are each one identifiable merchant.
Where agents stall
Of the 31 food and drink stores Ottom measured at every stage, 39% scored 80 or better at the buy stage, against 90% at the discover stage.
Each stage of the journey, and the share of food and drink stores whose score at that stage was 80 or better.
| Stage | Median score | Stores passing | Stores measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discover | 100 | 90% | 31 |
| Evaluate | 88 | 84% | 31 |
| Compare | 100 | 90% | 31 |
| Buy | 27 | 39% | 31 |
Reaching the payment step
39% of the 31 food and drink stores Ottom measured let an AI shopping agent reach the payment step. Ottom stops there and never submits payment.
What stops them
The most common stall on food and drink stores is products have no GTIN or MPN to match against, found on 87% of the 31 stores Ottom scanned in the category in the 90 days to 9 October 2026.
The most common stalls in this category, as a share of all 31 stores scanned. A stall found on fewer than 5 stores is withheld, because at that count it points at a merchant rather than at a category.
None common
- No product identifier87%
- Variants undescribed16%
None common
- Add to cart needs JavaScript32%
- Payment step unreachable16%
| Stall | Stage | Severity | Share of stores |
|---|---|---|---|
| Products have no GTIN or MPN to match againstEvaluate | Evaluate | Medium | |
| Add to cart needs JavaScript the agent cannot runBuy | Buy | Medium | |
| Variants are not described in structured dataEvaluate | Evaluate | High | |
| Agent could not reach the payment stepBuy | Buy | Critical |
What to change first
- No product identifier
Populate the barcode field (GTIN, EAN or UPC) on each variant, which most platforms already have a field for.
- Add to cart needs JavaScript
Wrap the add to cart control in a form that posts to a cart endpoint, and let scripts intercept it for the nicer experience.
- Variants undescribed
Add hasVariant entries to the Product markup, one per purchasable combination, each with its own offer carrying price and availability.
5 further stalls were found in this category but withheld: too few stores showed them to report a share without pointing at an individual store.
Citing this benchmark
These figures are published under CC BY 4.0. Quote them freely, with this attribution:
Ottom, Food and drink agentic commerce benchmark v2.0.3, 11 July 2026 to 9 October 2026, methodology bench-v5. https://ottom.io/benchmarks/food-and-drink/v2.0.3. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
The same figures as JSON.