Reentering the atmosphere after a summer vacation is hard enough without the realization that, yet again, there’s nothing in the fridge. When the last thing you and your sunburn want to do is trek to the grocery store, take heart: You don’t have to.
FreshDirect, Hungry Harvest and Instacart recently expanded their grocery delivery services to Arlington, McLean and parts of Falls Church, joining at least a dozen other companies giving locals an excuse to skip the store this summer.
Nationally, online delivery still represents a fraction of total grocery sales — but that share is growing. A recent report from Nielsen and the Food Marketing Institute forecasts that shoppers will spend about 20 percent of their grocery budgets on online purchases by 2025.
If you’ve never tried grocery delivery, now is a great time to take one of the services for a spin. Not only are there more companies vying for your online business, but many of them are offering introductory discounts or free trial periods for first-time shoppers.
Third-Party Delivery, From Store To Door
FreshDirect
This grocery delivery service, beloved by busy New Yorkers, expanded in April to Arlington, McLean, Bethesda and the District.
With no brick-and-mortar stores, the company delivers groceries from local producers — in “half the time” it would take for those goods to get from a farm to a grocery store and to a customer’s home, the company says — via Amazon-like warehouses near the cities it serves. A new warehouse in Prince George’s County is the hub for local distributions.
FreshDirect was launched in 1999 and the April expansion is the company’s first foray into the Washington area. That means customers here can benefit from years of experience and efficiency gleaned in the Big Apple. The brand focuses on from-the-farm products and works with purveyors in the Northeast (and, with this expansion, in the Mid-Atlantic, as well) to source produce, meat and dairy items. Prepared and specialty foods help fill in the produce gaps in the winter months. Delivery costs $7.99 per order or $129 for a year.