23 ms·

How do these folks get groceries from the store now?

throwthisawayt 9y ago
They probably use delivery services for groceries or don't cook. The point of blue apron was it was an easy way for people intimidated by cooking to start doing it.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  That's one point of Blue Apron. For me, the point is that I can spend 100% of my cooking time cooking, instead of planning or shopping. As a result, I cook a lot more, and I like that.
- cakedoggie 9y ago
  Or use a bike and pick up stuff on the way home from work.
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  That's a very narrow view of how people get around. Is it based on a rural experience? I've never been outside of walking distance of a small shop for food shopping.
  - Osmium 9y ago
    > I've never been outside of walking distance of a small shop for food shopping I'd be interested to know whether a typical person's idea of what "walking distance" is has decreased or not over recent years.
  - lobf 9y ago
    I live near downtown LA and the closest grocery store is 2 miles from me.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    In New York, yes. In LA, absolutely not. When I lived in LA, the closest shop was 3 miles down a canyon.
disantlor 9y ago
it's difficult; you need to carry them or take a cab, and it's especially hard to buy for multiple meals and in the quantities to realize significant savings that outweigh the meal kit convenience. as we got busier our 1-2 weekly home cooked meals dropped to once per every two weeks, and my partner loves cooking and she's very good at it, never thought she was the audience for a meal kit. she ended up getting a job at Plated. Now we cook 2-3 times a week and end up spending more time together as a result. the cost is not trivial (and of course we have access to employee discount) but it's certainly less expensive than almost any take out meal in NYC. i don't know what the long term situation is like but i could see it always doing well at least in a city like new york
- muninn_ 9y ago
  On the other hand, I walk across the street to my grocery store, or I stop by on the way home after work to the same branded store that's near my work. Why pay $12-$15/meal when I can pay far less from my grocery store? Also I don't really understand why nobody is addressing that a grocery store can just buy a van and deliver to you within the hour if necessary, but easily at least same day. What do I do with Blue Apron if I need something now? Oh and don't forget that it's a simple market to get into, and will absolutely have razor-thin margins if they want to stay in business. They are dead on arrival.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> How do these folks get groceries from the store now? Either via home delivery (so, not people who would use a curbside drop off), posdibly, in some areas, through Amazon Prime Fresh, or in smaller, more frequent trips walking or with a bike, or they don't regularly, and they just eat out and work with non-perishables at home.
numbsafari 9y ago
I walk to the store and buy groceries and then walk home. No cab, delivery service, or drone needed. Sometimes I shop at a store closer to the office and bring what I buy home on the bus [which is typically how I get to/from work].
- Osmium 9y ago
  > I walk to the store and buy groceries and then walk home. Right, exactly. Some of these replies are incredible! Absolutely if you live somewhere more remote you'll need a car, but for people in urban areas...? I've lived in several quite different cities over the last decade and haven't owned a car the entire time and have managed to buy groceries just fine. No Amazon Fresh or eating out regularly required...
  - Mithorium 9y ago
    There's a grocery store across the street from me, connected by an underground mall. I don't even need to go outside to get to groceries, much less get in a car
    - numbsafari 9y ago
      Montréal?
      - Mithorium 9y ago
        yep! ;)
  - phil21 9y ago
    Discussing outliers isn't that interesting, to be honest. There are exceedingly few cities in the US where not owning a car is practical for the vast majority of people. Sure, you can live pretty much anywhere without a car - but you are now in the extreme minority trying to make that work and likely are making significant lifestyle changes/sacrifices to do so. I grew up without a car in my household in a very midwest giant-suburb style metro area, and it was truly a different lifestyle. I would not go back to that. However, living in Chicago without a car is an amazing liberating experience, not the hinderance it was elsewhere.
closeparen 9y ago
We accept significant inconvenience. Make the 45 minute bus journey or uphill bike ride there a couple times a week and overstuff a backpack. Pick up small items at the overpriced, upscale mini-marts between work and the downtown bus/train terminals, if we remember to. Rent a Zipcar or take an Uber each way to the nearest proper supermarket that's open at the conclusion of our bus rides home, and kick ourselves for the expense.
- oceanpumpkins 9y ago
  Get a bicycle trailer! It fits a lot more food than a backpack.
  - lovich 9y ago
    You need a bicycle friendly city. I tried for a bit and decided that worse meals were better than risking my life on the road
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Can't store one of those at a dense apartment building. We're close to exceeding the capacity of the bike room with bikes alone. I guess dense apartment buildings far from grocery stores are kind of an anachronism, but that's segregated residential/commercial zoning for you.
- raphael_kimmig 9y ago
  If you haven’t tried them I’d suggest getting a set of panniers for grocery hauls (I’ve got the ortlieb backroller plus). We do most of our grocery shopping by bike and having panniers makes transporting larger quantities much easier.
lovich 9y ago
I'm in a city and currently don't own a car. We end up buying groceries through delivery services like instacart or peapod. If the service fails to deliver, which happens more frequently than we want, we kinda just deal with not having the food we wanted. Sometimes that means esti g a substandard meal, sometimes it means eating some frozen food we had and turning the other ingredients into a different meal the next day. It's extremely incovienent but it's better than walking to s supermarket or all the problems that come with car ownership in a city Edit:we also ended up eating out at about an average of 2.5 nights a week every year which is much higher than when I lived in a rural area with a car
rsynnott 9y ago
One of the four supermarkets I walk past on the way to work every day. Or occasionally from a larger fifth one which requires a small detour. This is in a medium-sized (~1 million people) European city; I gather your milage may vary in an American city, though I assume the ones where people tend to not have cars are mostly fairly dense.

They probably use delivery services for groceries or don't cook. The point of blue apron was it was an easy way for people intimidated by cooking to start doing it.

greglindahl 9y ago
That's one point of Blue Apron. For me, the point is that I can spend 100% of my cooking time cooking, instead of planning or shopping. As a result, I cook a lot more, and I like that.
cakedoggie 9y ago
Or use a bike and pick up stuff on the way home from work.
ivanbakel 9y ago
That's a very narrow view of how people get around. Is it based on a rural experience? I've never been outside of walking distance of a small shop for food shopping.
- Osmium 9y ago
  > I've never been outside of walking distance of a small shop for food shopping I'd be interested to know whether a typical person's idea of what "walking distance" is has decreased or not over recent years.
- lobf 9y ago
  I live near downtown LA and the closest grocery store is 2 miles from me.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  In New York, yes. In LA, absolutely not. When I lived in LA, the closest shop was 3 miles down a canyon.

disantlor 9y ago

it's difficult; you need to carry them or take a cab, and it's especially hard to buy for multiple meals and in the quantities to realize significant savings that outweigh the meal kit convenience. as we got busier our 1-2 weekly home cooked meals dropped to once per every two weeks, and my partner loves cooking and she's very good at it, never thought she was the audience for a meal kit. she ended up getting a job at Plated. Now we cook 2-3 times a week and end up spending more time together as a result. the cost is not trivial (and of course we have access to employee discount) but it's certainly less expensive than almost any take out meal in NYC. i don't know what the long term situation is like but i could see it always doing well at least in a city like new york

muninn_ 9y ago
On the other hand, I walk across the street to my grocery store, or I stop by on the way home after work to the same branded store that's near my work. Why pay $12-$15/meal when I can pay far less from my grocery store? Also I don't really understand why nobody is addressing that a grocery store can just buy a van and deliver to you within the hour if necessary, but easily at least same day. What do I do with Blue Apron if I need something now? Oh and don't forget that it's a simple market to get into, and will absolutely have razor-thin margins if they want to stay in business. They are dead on arrival.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> How do these folks get groceries from the store now? Either via home delivery (so, not people who would use a curbside drop off), posdibly, in some areas, through Amazon Prime Fresh, or in smaller, more frequent trips walking or with a bike, or they don't regularly, and they just eat out and work with non-perishables at home.

numbsafari 9y ago

I walk to the store and buy groceries and then walk home. No cab, delivery service, or drone needed. Sometimes I shop at a store closer to the office and bring what I buy home on the bus [which is typically how I get to/from work].

Osmium 9y ago
> I walk to the store and buy groceries and then walk home. Right, exactly. Some of these replies are incredible! Absolutely if you live somewhere more remote you'll need a car, but for people in urban areas...? I've lived in several quite different cities over the last decade and haven't owned a car the entire time and have managed to buy groceries just fine. No Amazon Fresh or eating out regularly required...
- Mithorium 9y ago
  There's a grocery store across the street from me, connected by an underground mall. I don't even need to go outside to get to groceries, much less get in a car
  - numbsafari 9y ago
    Montréal?
    - Mithorium 9y ago
      yep! ;)
- phil21 9y ago
  Discussing outliers isn't that interesting, to be honest. There are exceedingly few cities in the US where not owning a car is practical for the vast majority of people. Sure, you can live pretty much anywhere without a car - but you are now in the extreme minority trying to make that work and likely are making significant lifestyle changes/sacrifices to do so. I grew up without a car in my household in a very midwest giant-suburb style metro area, and it was truly a different lifestyle. I would not go back to that. However, living in Chicago without a car is an amazing liberating experience, not the hinderance it was elsewhere.

closeparen 9y ago

We accept significant inconvenience. Make the 45 minute bus journey or uphill bike ride there a couple times a week and overstuff a backpack. Pick up small items at the overpriced, upscale mini-marts between work and the downtown bus/train terminals, if we remember to. Rent a Zipcar or take an Uber each way to the nearest proper supermarket that's open at the conclusion of our bus rides home, and kick ourselves for the expense.

oceanpumpkins 9y ago
Get a bicycle trailer! It fits a lot more food than a backpack.
- lovich 9y ago
  You need a bicycle friendly city. I tried for a bit and decided that worse meals were better than risking my life on the road
- closeparen 9y ago
  Can't store one of those at a dense apartment building. We're close to exceeding the capacity of the bike room with bikes alone. I guess dense apartment buildings far from grocery stores are kind of an anachronism, but that's segregated residential/commercial zoning for you.
raphael_kimmig 9y ago
If you haven’t tried them I’d suggest getting a set of panniers for grocery hauls (I’ve got the ortlieb backroller plus). We do most of our grocery shopping by bike and having panniers makes transporting larger quantities much easier.

lovich 9y ago

I'm in a city and currently don't own a car. We end up buying groceries through delivery services like instacart or peapod. If the service fails to deliver, which happens more frequently than we want, we kinda just deal with not having the food we wanted. Sometimes that means esti g a substandard meal, sometimes it means eating some frozen food we had and turning the other ingredients into a different meal the next day. It's extremely incovienent but it's better than walking to s supermarket or all the problems that come with car ownership in a city Edit:we also ended up eating out at about an average of 2.5 nights a week every year which is much higher than when I lived in a rural area with a car

rsynnott 9y ago

One of the four supermarkets I walk past on the way to work every day. Or occasionally from a larger fifth one which requires a small detour. This is in a medium-sized (~1 million people) European city; I gather your milage may vary in an American city, though I assume the ones where people tend to not have cars are mostly fairly dense.