THE RACE  
 Inside the many grocery  
 BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN 
 This is the fi rst story in am- 
 NewYork Metro’s fi ve-part  series  
 examining the proliferation  
 of grocery delivery services  
 across the city — and the impact  
 they’re having on residents  
 and brick-and-mortar business  
 owners alike. 
 In a city where the sight of  
 delivery workers whizzing by  
 on an electric bicycle with an  
 insulated  bag  strapped  
 to their back has become  
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 HOW TO REACH US 
 COURIER L 6     IFE, OCTOBER 22-28, 2021 
 ubiquitous, a  
 handful of new grocery  
 delivery  apps  
 have  emerged  —  
 all  marketing  the  
 speed at which they  
 can have a forgotten  
 dinner ingredient, pint  
 of  ice  cream,  or  roll  of  toilet  
 paper at your door. 
 Startups  including  JOKR,  
 Gorillas, and Fridge No More  
 are slowly marking their territory  
 in  New  York  City,  setting  
 up shop in a select handful  
 of neighborhoods and  
 luring in  customers with the  
 promise of getting their order  
 within  ten  minutes,  whether  
 it’s two items or 20. 
 They join a legion of other  
 delivery apps that have  
 changed  the  dining  game  in  
 New York City, like Uber Eats  
 and  DoorDash,  who  deliver  
 hot meals from restaurants  
 right to your door, and Insta- 
 Cart which outsources your  
 grocery  list  to  a  contracted  
 worker who will do the shopping  
 for you and deliver it to  
 your home. Fresh Direct, the  
 city’s  oldest  online  delivery  
 service, delivers all their food  
 from their mega-warehouse  
 in the south Bronx. 
 Apps like JOKR and Gorillas  
 mirror Fresh Direct’s approach. 
  Their orders are fi lled  
 in their own warehouses, not  
 at independent grocery stores  
 or restaurants — but that’s  
 where  the  similarities  end.  
 Rather  than  concentrating  
 their stock in one huge warehouse, 
  they make use of “dark  
 stores,”  micro-warehouses  
 scattered across the city.  
 Each  micro-warehouse  
 delivers to the neighborhood  
 it’s in, not  
 citywide. 
 Each  of  JOKR’s  
 dark  stores  serves  
 about one square  
 mile, said Tyler  
 Trerotola,  a  US  cofounder  
 of  the  app.  The  
 company uses a software that  
 calculates how far an eightminute  
 ride on an electric bicycle  
 is,  then  draws  a  “polygon” 
   around  the  warehouse  
 to show the coverage area. 
 “We try to place those a  
 mile apart from each other,”  
 Trerotola said. “Once in a  
 while,  we  will  overlap  them.  
 We try not to, but say there’s  
 an  area  with  really  high  demand, 
   and  we  want  to  make  
 sure  we’re  meeting  that  demand, 
  there’s potential to  
 have somewhat of an overlap  
 on these polygons.” 
 JOKR  launched  in  New  
 York  City  in  June  with  four  
 hubs, and have since expanded  
 to  ten,  delivering  to  
 Williamsburg, Long Island  
 City, lower Manhattan, the  
 Upper  East  Side  and  the  Upper  
 West  Side.  The  company  
 expects to open an additional  
 ten hubs before the end of the  
 year. 
 A Fridge No More delivery worker goes on a run in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  
   Photo by Gabriele Holtermann 
 Started last spring by German  
 entrepreneur  Ralf Wenzel, 
   the  founder  and  CEO  of  
 FoodPanda  and  former  partner  
 of  SoftBank,  JOKR  had  
 raised  more  than  $170  million  
 by July from fi nanciers  
 including Tiger Global and  
 GGV Capital. 
 Gorillas in the midst 
 Gorillas, a Berlin-based  
 app launched in June 2020 by  
 Ka an Sümer, quickly became  
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 THE  
 RACE RACE TO  TO  
 DELIVER 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 BROOKLYN GRAPHIC (ISSN 0740-2260) Copyright © 2021 by the Brooklyn Courier Life LLC is published weekly by Brooklyn Courier Life LLC, One Metrotech North, 10th floor Brooklyn, NY 11201. 52 times a year. Business and  
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