BRONX TIMES REPORTER, O BTR CT. 29-NOV. 4, 2021 9
ARE THE NEW
GROCERY
DELIVERY
APPS WORTH
IT TO NYC
CONSUMERS?
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 fi rst
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
advertising delivery in
Long Island City, neither had
a warehouse close enough to
deliver on the border between
LIC and Astoria.
Still, fi lling a cart on the
apps was similar in price to
fi lling one in-person, though
the same brand discrepancies
exist — if you’re hoping to
fi nd 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 pint of Ben & Jerry’s
Ice cream, $5.29, and a dozen
Eggland Large White Eggs,
$2.99. What I couldn’t get on
Gorillas was a gallon of dairy
milk — most of their milks
are lactose or dairy-free. I
chose 12 ounces of Ronnybrook
Farm milk for $1.89,
but the real next-best choice
was a half gallon of Battenkill
Valley skim milk, which runs
$4.49.
At Food Universe, the
same dozen eggs costs $3.99,
though the store was running
a “manager special,” on a different
brand of eggs — 3 cartons
of a dozen for $5. A gallon
of 2 percent milk was $3.59,
Green Giant Green Beans
$1.99, the same pint of Ben
& Jerry’s, $5.59, two liters of
Coke, $2.49, and a four-pack of
Scott toilet paper, $5.29.
At a nearby independent
halal grocery store, a gallon
of milk was $3.49, as advertised
by a sign taped to the
front door, 2 liters of any soda,
$2.49, and single rolls of Scott
toilet paper, $1.49.
We had some more trouble
with brands on JOKR. We
fi lled the cart with a bottle of
Palmolive dish soap, $2.99 —
slightly more expensive than
the Food Universe’s most expensive
bottle, which was
$2.79, but on par with a bottle
of Ajax at the halal store – a
four-pack of Scott, $3.79, and
2 liters of Coke, $2.29. The
cheapest eggs, a dozen Alderfer
“humane certifi ed” large
eggs, was $3.49, the cheapest
loaf of bread, “Mestemacher
Fitness Bread,” $3.99, compared
to a $2.29 loaf of storebrand
Italian bread at Food
Universe.
We couldn’t fi nd canned
green beans, but the closest
item – a 12oz bag of fresh
beans — was $3.99, and a halfgallon
of Organic Valley 2
percent milk was $4.79.
All together, the haul was
$25.51, plus $0.81 in taxes and
a $6.00 tip — $32.32 in total. At
the time, the app noted that
delivery would likely take
longer because of the heavy
rain.
Of course, your experiences
with these apps may
vary.
‘It’s an atrocity’
Some aren’t sold on the
idea of grocery delivery apps,
no matter how convenient or
cost-effective the companies
promise they are.
Friends Jasmine Lee and
Kahlil Robert Irving prefer to
support local businesses and
know the owners.
Lee, who lives and works
in Chinatown, thinks “it’s an
atrocity.” She prefers to pick
her produce and disagrees
that using a grocery delivery
app is faster.
“It’s actually not very convenient,”
Lee said. “What’s
more convenient than just
running down the street to
your bodega?”
Kahlil Robert Irving, who
lived in Brooklyn and now
calls St. Louis, Missouri
home, felt that the constant
evolution of trying to fi gure
out how to make money by offering
more convenience was
quite problematic for human
interaction.
“It’s about being human.
This kind of evolution of capitalism
is dehumanizing,”
Irving expressed. “It’s demonizing
the possibility of
relationships or sustaining
interpersonal relationships.”
David Bishop, a partner
with Brick Meets Click, a consulting
company that works
with “conventional” grocery
stores, said those established
brick-and-mortars know best.
“The retailer’s inventory
ordering system is fairly automated
in the sense that
it’s looking at historical buying
patterns, overlaying that
with other causal factors
like weather, and incorporating
what the current sales
trends are to replenish that
stock,” Bishop said. “A traditional
grocery store has
been around a long time, so
their understanding of what
sells and what doesn’t is far
greater than what a new entrant
who’s coming in and
trying to serve a specifi c need
may be able to do.”
Quick-delivery apps, for
now, are focused in dense urban
areas. Since each small
warehouse serves a small
area — maxing out at 2.5
miles, in the case of 1520 —
there need to be a lot of people
living there.
The cost of purchasing
enough land or renting out a
large enough building to run
a traditional grocery store
is much higher in New York
City and the tri-state area
than in rural areas, Bishop
said, so operating out of a
store with a smaller footprint,
and that doesn’t invite shoppers
in, means those companies
have “comparable costs,
although lower to traditional
brick-and-mortar grocers.”
All stores try to reduce
waste, he said, because, in the
end, it eats into their profi ts
— but he said the proof that
carrying fewer items would
result in less waste “remains
to be seen.”
The third installment of
“The Race to Deliver,” scheduled
to run on Nov. 5, will focus
on the potential and current
impacts grocery delivery
apps may have on bodegas,
grocery stores and other brickand
mortar businesses.
A Buyk courier delivers groceries in the Village. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann