We use Imperfect Produce with a delivery every two weeks. Most of the selections are good, altho I've had a terrible luck with avocados from them and refuse to buy them any longer.

Last year they had Tokyo turnips for about a month with great prices. This year several times the melons were Dulcinea brand which is our favorite. Very high quality with high brix levels; the melons are the Tuscans which are hard to find.

I use Safeway and am so-so on them. Now that they are owned by a hedge fund there's been quite a shakeup in their back office systems and deliveries don't always work well. I'd say about 70% of the time they arrive within the 1-hr period.

Getting hold of a live person on their customer service line is like pulling teeth altho the reps are all excellent. But expect to wait on hold 30-60 minutes before they pick up.

More problematic is that you don't always get what you've ordered. I'd say only 10% of the time do I get my entire order. "Out of stock" seems to happen fairly often. Also, I don't always care for their substitutions. Sometimes even tho I've marked "no substitutions" they'll sneak something in that they think is the same - and about 50% of the time it isn't.

It's seldom so egregiously off that I've had to return things to my local store, but it DOES happen. Still, it saves me a fair amount of time and gas, so I continue with it.

I occasionally order from Good Eggs which I think is strictly SFBA. They have some good gourmet items as it's a higher end specialty delivery-only service.

Keep meaning to try the Whole Foods thing since we're Amazon Prime, but I never shop there so I tend to forget about them. I try not to walk into any stores these days, LOL. Just not as interested in it as I used to be.

Before I retired 5 years ago and when the kids were home, I planned my menu for the week so meticulously, that I rarely had to go to the store more than once a week! I also had to drive at least 4 miles to any grocery store!

Now that we have moved into town I'll do a big shopping trip 1x per month for things I know the local grocery won't have. I some times walk the 5 minutes to the store a couple times a day, just to get out of the house! A couple of major stores are just a mile or 2 away, so it's no big deal to go. Nancy

I looked into it but since we live so far out in the boonies no one will deliver to us. :/ It's just as well. I don't mind grocery shopping and it puts steps on my fitbit.

I first met Instacart when I literally met one of their shoppers in the produce aisle at Whole Foods and asked him what the logo on his T-shirt meant. I LOVED them in the begging.

Eeek. I can't edit my accidentally posted above. Nowadays, I think Instacart have people who work at the store gathering the groceries which sit around for awhile until a runner picks them up for delivery. Or something like that. Gone are the days when you could give detailed instructions to a personal shopper. at the closest store, checking with you before checkout, and bringing them right to you. And the people who do the picking now don't really know the products and bring too many of the wrong thing. I still use them in emergencies, but don't rely on them anymore. They did see me through a few bad backs and similar so I didn't have to rope reluctant relatives or friends into dragging me around the store.

I've often used Amazon to get products that aren't at the local stores anymore. I've tried Prime Pantry, and it's not a good fit. Nor is Amazon Fresh.

Awhile ago, I checked into CSA's and ideas like Imperfect Produce, but haven't found any that suit my cooking style. OTOH, I'm tempted to order directly from one of the big small producers because they will send retail quantities to your house of items that are hard to score in the stores.

Summary, short of having a cook or houseman, grocery delivery services can be very useful, if their offerings are a good fit to what you want to receive. For most things the only added price is the tip. :)

Well, we don't have produce deliveries, but the local Meijer does sell something called "MisFits", which is the imperfect produce, and at a much reduced price. They don't have everything but this week they had a bag of lemons for $1.49 that were $2.79 for the conventional "prettier" ones. Also apples, limes, avocados and tangerines. For some reason, I think the company is based in Canada, but I could be wrong.

As for delivery services, we have something called Shipt, again through the local Meijer. They will deliver as far as my house, it goes by zip code, so even though I live 7 miles from the store, they'll deliver it. It cost $49 for the first year, and I just get online, choose the products from my local Meijer, pay for them and a person will shop for those items, call me if they aren't available or if they have a question, deliver the groceries to my house. The groceries are a few cents more for each item and it's customary to tip the driver although I guess it isn't mandatory.

I used it once. (shrug) I go into town at least once a week when I do Dave's books at the garage and so I just stop then. I found it aggravating to log in, wait for everything to load (remember, I don't have high speed internet and cell phones don't work out here), put in my payment information only to lose connection and have to start over, plus the store was always out of something or another and I got three separate phone calls from the shopper before she was done with my order.

It's a nice thing to have, though, if I need it. I wish it were available to my Mother, but she lives even further out of town than I do.

Annie

It's a great idea, but I'm too far out in the boonies to get service.

I must have spent five minutes picking a head of cauliflower last night. I can’t imagine someone picking my groceries for me. Maybe the inner aisle stuff but not produce and meat. Although steeply discounted I might consider it. Unfortunately Imperfect Produce is not in my area yet.

1. Drone technology has grown from toys to practical multipurpose transportation tools.

2. Automated massive greenhouses are everywhere.

3. Self driving cars, trucks will be on the road soon.

4. There is new battery technology which will make electric cars travel very long distances.

4. Amazon bought Whole Foods.

Put the above development together, you can see that in the near future, there may not be your local supermarkets anymore. there is no way they can compete. and all food will come in plastic wrapped packages and frozen.

Why do you think Amazon is busy setting up their second headquarters, which will employ 50,000 more employees?

dcarch

I don't think that brick and mortar supermarkets will be dsappearing anytime soon ;-) Grocery delivery services are available here but do not seem to be used very extensively.......one rarely sees delivery trucks out and about, although all the larger stores do have them. But I can imagine they would be very handy for those that have mobility issues or are housebound for whatever reason. It would just have to be based on one's locale as "out in the boonies" is a term that applies to much of this area....some folks need to travel as much as 45 minutes to reach a typical grocery store and it seems unrealistic to assume a grocery could make a profit (or even breakeven) paying a driver and van/truck to drive all over kingdom come!!

There are a lot of CSA's in my area (semi- to fully rural) but none deliver - all are you pick up. And I am not aware of any that offer less than perfect produce at discounted prices.

I will say that the most popular grocery here is very upscale and huge......69,000sf!! (yes, about half the size of a typical Costco....but ALL they sell is food!!). It draws from a very wide geographical base and folks will drive an hour or more to shop there. And it is always very busy. Hard to find a parking place during 'normal' shopping hours and that's saying something as the parking lot is equally huge!

gardengal, with Shipt, the shopper has to use their own car to deliver the groceries, there are no marked trucks or vans.

I also don't think grocery stores are going anywhere soon. Of course, I'm probably not buying commercial meat anytime in the near future, but in the winter I do buy fresh produce.

I don't mind the imperfect produce, if I'm making applesauce the apples don't need to be pretty and with mashed potatoes, they don't all have to be the same size. I seldom make something that needs "pretty" produce.

Annie

Shipt is not available in my area. As I stated, much of my area can be pretty remote from what most consider "civilization" :-)

"---I also don't think grocery stores are going anywhere soon. ----"

Really? where are your local drug stores? hardware stores? fashion stores? where are all the Sears stores? What happened to Toys R Us? why are shopping malls closing ?

Amazon has been perfecting drone delivery for a while. And clerk-less store shopping is already here. Amazon automated food delivery of everything in plastic packages is a no-brainer.

dcarch

"Really? where are your local drug stores? hardware stores? fashion stores? where are the Sears stores? What happened to Toys R Us? why are shopping malls closing ?"

I don't know where you are living but all those things here are right where they always were!! In fact, a new mall recently opened (24 months?) just a short half mile or so from a much larger one. And neither have many vacancies.

And the two closest local towns - both a significant drive away from the mall(s) - have many small mom and pop stores or boutiques that sell a wide range of products and are thriving.

I think you may be spreading gloom and doom unnecessarily :-) Not everyone wants to shop online exclusively. And some not at all!!

"---I think you may be spreading gloom and doom unnecessarily :-) Not everyone wants to shop online exclusively. And some not at all!!---"

You may be right locally, however, it is well known that :

---Thanks to a continued economic slowdown and rapid advance of the digital revolution, the U.S. mall industry is retracting and facing high vacancy levels. Websites such as deadmalls.com collect pictures of weedy parking lots and barren food courts, and try to explain how once-thriving shopping centers began to spiral downward. ----"

Even now, you can buy any fresh food from Amazon. Some time ago, I bought live lobsters, delivered, from Amazon.

Amazon GO, a supermarket with no employees is already in operation. With their establish delivery capability, they will out price all other supermarket chains.

and:

https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/15/moby-autonomous-grocery-store/

dcarch

I might have to agree with the regional aspect :-) This area has a very strong regional economy, a high cost of living, rapidly escalating housing prices and a lot of growth. And it also has a very active digital/tech-oriented population (home of Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) but no one I know orders their groceries online........just saying :-)

So how long do you think this will happen in your area? And how will your local supermarkets fight back:

dcarch

I don't know anyone who orders groceries on line, but I do know that the farmers' markets here get quite crowded and a certainly not diminishing in popularity. I've also not noticed it getting any easier to park at the malls, and new ones have been built recently - notably in Playa Vista. Part of the situation here is that the population is getting denser as they start to replace houses with condos or apartment houses. Not in my immediate neighborhood so much, but in areas nearby. Even the local hardware store has come back to life after being closed for a short time when the original owners retired. Anyway, it is now back in business.

I get some food items delivered, such as my protein drinks, but nothing fresh. I could join a co-op and have them send me seasonal fruits and vegetables, but I prefer going to the farmers' markets, even though it is getting more difficult to park recently.

Trader Joe's stores are always crowded here, and they do not deliver - maybe they should.

When I went to Germany in the 70s, every town had a farm market. They had gone out of style here in the US except for larger towns. Now they are making a big comeback. I see more development of products direct from the farm to the consumer. In fact, this has been a trend for a while now.

It is my own personal opinion, that more and more food from "farm" to your kitchen will be automated. Convenience and cost will be the priority, not taste and health.

There is only one way to fight back, that is to have your own garden and grow your own.

I have not yet had to go to the supermarket for vegetables this year.

dcarch

Fresh-to-table farms here are much too small to become automated!! And every community here has a farmer's market, most from April through the end of October, and they are all extremely popular and well visited.

And while home gardens are popular here as well, not everyone has the space, time or ability to grow their own veggies.

I just don't see the status quo changing any time soon. YMMV

I started a mango seed today that I got from a woman down the street. She has a somewhat small mango tree that is loaded with mangoes, and she gave one to me so that I could grow one also. She said she grew her tree from a seed, and so I know it will do well in this neighborhood. She also gave me a chili from a six foot high chili plant that looked more like a bush or a tree than a chili plant. I'll plant those seeds in February.

Delivery doesn't suit us at this time but so many use the service in the city. Most just have basics delivered. And only the basic fridge ingredients like eggs yogurt milk juice etc. We like planning meals on what is fresh and seasonal along with my garden loot. Certain things I can't grow like avocado and mango, lemons/limes I would have delivered.

Delivery service has been going on for decades in NYC. Our grandparents had their milk and eggs and bread delivered so we are going full circle. We would have to have a porch cooler delivery box for perishables like they did back in the day.

Some rural communities do have weekly bus service for the elderly that is wonderful and a social event.

My indoor garden is up and running for the winter. I grow macro all summer but many more varieties in the winter.

Last winter, I made use a lot of Kroger’s Click List. I did not want to go into the store with their walk-in health clinic, and sick people roaming the aisles just “ picking a few things up” while running a fever with flu. So I placed my order online and they were brought directly to my car in a special part of the parking lot. Only one small mistake over 3 months of shopping. Yes, a small fee but better than getting flu!

One of my sisters uses Wal-Mart's new pickup service and is very happy with it. They bring it right out to her car. I haven't tried it but I don't believe there is a fee for the service,but there might be.

Another strike against grocery delivery for me is that SO absolutely HATES strangers coming up to the house. He grumbles every time I get a package.

FOAS, it's funny that you wouldn't let someone pick you a cauliflower from Whole Foods, where they're all lovely, but would take blind boxes of Imperfect Produce. :) I'm picky about my veg too, but if I'm pushed to order in groceries I'm more grateful to have something decent than to worry about whether there was a better one I'd have chosen if I were there.

Re bricks and mortar vs. online, many years ago I was in e-commerce. We started around the same time as Amazon, but we didn't want to be Amazon. I learned a lot. My prediction at the time, which has been coming true faster than I expected (this applies specifically to places with a certain level of population density)--Indistinguishable products will mostly be sold by big box stores and large online retailers. Interesting, unique, and unusual products will be sold in boutiques. They make be in town centers rather than malls, but shopping neighborhoods will create a draw for these seeking these lower sell through, higher ticket items. In fact, there is now a company that specializes in creating false towns rather than traditional shopping malls, that are comforting destinations for adult shoppers, with higher end dining and entertainment, mixed with some chain boutiques and some smaller local stores. Parking lots, yes, but not the traditional anchor stores of the late 20th C. shopping malls.

As to delivery, everything old is new again. When I was small the milkman came into the kitchen to put away the milk and dairy products. There was a bakery van that came around daily, and a vegetable man. The laundry man came to pick up and deliver the linens. The water man brought the bottles and changed the one on the water cooler. The Fuller Brush man came regularly to sell mops and combs and all. Many ladies made their side money selling Avon or Mary Kay cosmetics in the home. The laundry man still does pick up and deliver. Nowadays, we're not home as much, and there are jumbo stores like Amazon which will deliver milk, tortillas, nuts, water, mops and lipstick in one box, but it's not really new.

Plllog - I’m basing it on the hope that with my 30% discount I’ll still get produce that is less than 30% imperfect. Maybe not.

dcarch - I certainly hope it doesn’t get to the point where “all food will come in plastic wrapped packages and frozen.” Sounds dreadful. I thought you were kidding about lobster from Amazon, but no! Actually reasonably priced considering shipping is free.

gardengrl, I didn't mean that you could have Shipt or a similar service, but you said you hadn't seen trucks with names on the side. I was simply pointing out that the absence of branded vehicles didn't mean there were no options available, only that they didn't use trucks.

Annie

We used to have "Pink Dot" here that would deliver anything for you - especially fast food, I think. Anyway, a lot of people would call Pink Dot and have them do their shopping for them. I never used it.

I think bottled water has always been delivered - I've seen the water bottle trucks forever, but I no longer see the bread or milk trucks. In fact, the milk and bread trucks were discontinued before I moved here, and we had no delivery on the farm when I grew up. I had to milk the cow and bring the milk to the house. My sister and I used to have the churn the butter, but our grandmother invented an electric butter churner (and got a patent on it) that was fairly successful. She got quite a few royalties from it. The maid (and cook) had a vegetable patch that my father set aside for her, and she grew a lot of our vegetables, but sometimes I had to go to the vegetable patch and pick them. I liked digging up potatoes because they were unpredictable and could be surprising.

I knew people in San Francisco who had all their groceries delivered, but that was fairly common there since a lot of people did not have cars, and I imagine that Manhattan might be similar. I did not have a car in SF, and I would not want one in Manhattan either, but I did carry groceries on public transportation. In SF, stores were never that far away, however, but if you lived on Nob Hill, walking with groceries was not a good option. I used to live on Buena Vista Hill, and I would have to wait up to 15 or 20 minutes for the Roosevelt bus to take me to my house, but I did not stay there that long. I still did not have groceries delivered - I just had to wait for buses. I could take the 33 Ashbury bus also, which ran a bit more often and would go within about a block or two of my house.

My mother had Swanson food deliver to her in the country, and I think there were other food deliveries that she had. We had a fish monger in San Francisco that delivered fish, but it was difficult to know his schedule.

I used to carry groceries home on the bus and up four flights of stairs, but I was young and it was a good workout. I also lived in a small enough town that the bus driver would stop at an old lady's house and carry her shopping up to her front door. :)

There is still milk delivery available, and they still bring it into your kitchen if you want them to. Besides a wide variety of dairy, this company also has bread and sandwich meats, and a few other items.

I remember Pink Dot. It wasn't full service delivery so much as a convenience store with a deli counter that was delivery. There's also a liquor store in Santa Monica that has an expanded grocery section and delivers food as well as booze. There are other individual liquor stores that deliver food as well, but the Santa Monica one advertises on TV, and seems to have as much grocery store as liquor.

My point, however, is that these things go in cycles. A lot of the delivery model went out of style when there were fewer full time homemakers, more families with multiple vehicles, and a greater variety of food purchase options. Now, with bad traffic and expanded work hours, plus nightmare parking during peak periods (lunch, after school, after work), delivery seems like a great option to a lot of people again.

Speaking of food delivery, how about a little name dropping? :-)

I used to enjoy vegetables regularly from Nelson and Happy Rockefeller, NY governor and 41st US VP.

I had a part time job in an office in Westchester NY when I was in school. There was a hardworking fellow, Bobby, in the office who delivers milk, eggs, butter, etc. early morning before he arrived in the office. The Rockefeller estate was one of his customers. Frequently Bobby would run into Happy Rockefeller who was an avid gardener working in her garden. Happy would give Bobby a lot of surplus goodies from her garden. Bobby who couldn't cook would share his gifts with me when he came to the office..

dcarch

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When I lived in Connecticut, there was (and is) a service that delivers CSA or local farm foods year round once a week that was absolutely wonderful. You contact them earlier in the week, let them know if or what you wanted something, and they delivered. There was a service fee for driving based on how far you were from the home source of the operation - so in my case I stocked up my requests and would order maybe once a month. The food was awesomely fresh and I was quite content to let them do the selecting.

We also have Peapod (which is associated with some supermarket chains, most noteably Shop & Shop. I used them when I had my broken ankle and couldn't drive or walk much. They were great, but there were certain items I wouldn't rely on them picking for me -- seafood, lamb... certain veggies... (That was the fattiest piece of lamb I'd ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes upon!) Unfortunately, I'm currently residing too far out in the boonies for the service to want to travel to.

Farm Fresh Express contacted me directly if they needed to make substitutions. Peapod just found some random other thing and assumed I'd like it.