“Uprooted” event studio promotes JOKR’s new beer delivery. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
delivery apps worth it for NYC consumers?
Caribbean Life, NOVEMBER 5-11, 2021 27
lon 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 filled 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 certified”
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 find canned green beans,
but the closest item – a 12oz bag of fresh
beans — was $3.99, and a half-gallon 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 figure 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 specific 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 profits
— 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. 4,
will focus on the potential and current
impacts grocery delivery apps may have
on bodegas, grocery stores and other
brick-and-mortar businesses.
The warehouse window display of
the Gorillas grocery delivery service
in Chinatown, which promises to deliver
within 10 minutes. Photo by Gabriele
Holtermann
A Buyk courier delivers groceries in the Village. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann