How much of it sucks because of grocery shopping in general vs. being in food deserts[1]? I also happen to live in the same place served by Grocery Gateway, but

How much of it sucks because of grocery shopping in general vs. being in food deserts[1]? I also happen to live in the same place served by Grocery Gateway, but stopped using it years ago because the service fee increased and the selection decreased. On the other hand, I subscribe to the delivery of an organic vegetable basket every two weeks. Toronto is not a food desert by any means, with lots of fresh fruit and vegetable vendors on nearly every major street (where I live, there's three in close proximity; where I used to live, there were five or six). That said, I think the concept described here is very useful for a particular class of shopping: that which one would do on the way home from work. Yesterday, I had to pick some stuff up from one of our local stores on the way home (Planet Organic); my wife made the shopping list. If she had been able to make the shopping list directly with Planet Organic and I would have been able to just go pick it up without spending an additional ~25 minutes wandering around the (small) store, I would have been home about 40 minutes earlier than I was. One of the problems of modern grocery shopping is you're typically doing the shopping for at least a week at a time; Ernie's may allow your customers to shop for food more frequently in smaller batches, getting fresher produce every time. I'd push that concept forward. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert