The Race to Deliver
Are the new grocery delivery apps
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN AND
GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
This is the second story in a 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.
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 fi nd 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. co-founder 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 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
A Gorillas courier maneuvers through traffic as she is leaving the warehouse in Chinatown to deliver groceries.
from some of the city’s most popular apps
– or tried to – to see how prices on day-today
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 fi rst 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 to fi nd products
that meet their budget. If you expect to
fi nd “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 fl avor 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 confi rms the purchase, a page
pops up, keeping them up-to-date with the
delivery status of their order.
Delivery was swift. Only nine 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 p.m. to
8 a.m., 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.
PHOTOS BY GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
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 fourpack
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
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