Are the new grocery delivery apps
BY IRSTYN BRENDLEN AND
GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
This is the second story in
Schneps Media’s five-part series
examining the proliferation of
grocery delivery services across
the city — and the impact they’re
having on residents and brickand
mortar business owners
alike.
New quick-commerce grocery
delivery apps promise to
get you what you need within
15 minutes of placing your order
— whether it’s a full cart
of groceries or just the carton
of eggs you need to bake
brownies.
But the speed of delivery
isn’t the only draw — it’s the
cost.
Startups like Gorillas,
Fridge No More, 1520 and
JOKR advertise free delivery
or low delivery charges, and no
minimum order price.
On their website, Fridge
No More declares “No extra
cost for convenience. How are
prices so good? Smaller stores
= lower rent.” JOKR says their
prices are about the same as
what you’d find in the local grocery
store.
Each of these deliver from
a series of small, neighborhood
based “dark stores,”
micro-warehouses not open to
the public. A smaller store, as
Fridge No More says, means
lower rent.
“We have less overhead in a
small store than a traditional
shopping center, and we’re able
to have more control over our
inventory and our waste cost,”
said Tyler Trerotola, U.S. cofounder
of JOKR. “Which we
can channel back to the consumer
through better pricing.”
Unlike grocery services
like InstaCart, where personal
shoppers are sent to existing
grocery stores, these companies
buy their stock directly
from suppliers — there is no
middle man.
“Because we own our inventory,
we can procure from both
your large CPGs (consumer
packaged goods) of the world
all the way down to your mom
and pop shops, and have all of
that in the same store for delivery.
So we make more margin
on all of that,” Trerotola said.
The companies also keep
track of what sells and what
doesn’t in each warehouse, allowing
them to tailor the number
of items they order and
store – something else that can
A Gorillas courier maneuvers through traffic as she is leaving the warehouse in Chinatown to deliver groceries.
keep costs down, as they aren’t
ordering miscellaneous items
that need to be thrown away.
Making a grocery run
Our reporters placed grocery
orders from some of the
city’s most popular apps – or
tried to – to see how prices
on day-to-day necessities like
eggs, milk, and toilet paper
compared to the costs of the
same or similar foods on different
apps.
Besides promising to deliver
your groceries within 15
minutes, “Fridge No More”
also offers 50% off the first order.
However, the promo code
“50Less” had expired. After
contacting customer service
via their app — they responded
within one minute with a quite
cheerful sounding message —
the rep provided a new promo
code, which worked.
The app doesn’t provide the
option of sorting their products
from lowest to highest
priced, so frugal customers
have to scroll through the app
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.34 COM | OCT. 29 - NOV. 4, 2021
to find products that meet their
budget. If you expect to find
“no-name” brands to save an
extra buck, you’re out of luck.
While “Fridge No More” offers
brands that can be found
in any supermarket like Pepperidge
Farm and Charmin,
many of their products are
more “high-end.”
After adding a four-count
of “Seventh Generation” toilet
paper at $5.29, 10 oz of ground
Cafe Bustelo Espresso at $4.19,
a dozen large eggs at $3.19,
a loaf of white Italian bread
at $2.89, a 20 oz bottle of Gatorade
at $1,89, Silk Almond
Milk for $4.49, and a pint of
“Halo Top Ice Cream,” sea
salt caramel flavor at $5.29,
and one of America’s favorite
drinks, Coca Cola, which only
comes in cans and small glass
bottles — checkout was pretty
easy.
The total was $27.23, but
with the 50% code, I ended up
paying $19.61, including a 20%
tip or $5.49 for the courier. The
app gives customers the option
of tipping between 10, 15, 20, or
25%. The courier receives 80%
and the packer 20%. Once the
customer confirms the purchase,
a page pops up, keeping
them up-to-date with the delivery
status of their order.
Delivery was swift. Only 9
minutes after placing the order,
the courier arrived, handed
over the goods, and went on
his way.
A four-pack of Scott toilet
paper at the “corner store”
runs for $6.99, a dozen eggs,
cage-free are $4.99, Almond
Breeze is $5.99, a loaf of Arnold
White Bread is $4.69.
Shoppers who want to get a
head start and place an order
during off-hours hoping to receive
their groceries first thing
in the morning are out of luck.
Like regular stores, the app is
“closed” from 11 pm to 8 am,
and orders can’t be placed during
those times.
Not everything was easy
Orders placed with JOKR
and Gorillas were less successful.
Despite both companies
Photos by Gabriele Holtermann
advertising delivery in Long
Island City, neither had a warehouse
close enough to deliver
on the border between LIC and
Astoria.
Still, filling a cart on the
apps was similar in price to filling
one in-person, though the
same brand discrepancies exist
— if you’re hoping to find a
house-brand jug of milk or can
of vegetables on an app, you’re
likely out of luck.
A small order with Gorillas
— which was just a hypothetical,
since we couldn’t complete
the transaction – amounted to
$18.84 for the groceries themselves,
plus $1.80 delivery fee,
$0.28 in sales tax, and a $6 tip —
$27.33 in total.
The products themselves
were priced similarly to what
we found in a nearby Food Universe
— a grocery store owned
by Key Food — and in some cases
less expensive.
A can of Del Monte Green
Beans on Gorillas was 50 percent
off, $1.00, a four-pack of
Scott toilet paper, $4.99, a 2-liter
bottle of Coca-Cola, $2.69, a
THE RACE TO DELIVER