At the peak of the dotcom hype, I distinctly remember hearing people ooh and ahh over what was, at the time, a huge innovation: peapod.com. You would simply log on, enter what groceries you wanted delivered, and a truck would arrive with all the food your little heart desired.
I, however, was not impressed. Why? Because New Yorkers have been doing this for ages. My mother is on a first-name basis with a guy at our local D’Agostinos, and has been known to call him from a taxicab to ask to personally hand-select “two pounds of your prettiest strawberries.”
Personally, I love the grocery store. I like wandering the produce aisle, finding new vegetables I’ve never tried. I like browsing the cheese counter, wondering how long it would take to eat an entire wheel of Brie by myself (not very long, I can assure you). But if I were to order groceries, I would do it over the phone, like my mother, and so many other New Yorkers. With peapod, I doubt that there’s an option to select “the 1% milk farthest back in the case, and whatever berries look good to you.”
Amen…Why would one utilize Fresh Direct or the like when so much of the eating/food experience is based on touching, smelling, and the general interaction (right word?) with the food.
Grocery shopping ranks in the top 3 activities in which I could ever participate.