Since I make most of my food from scratch, getting fresh organic produce delivered every week or so right to my front door sounds like heaven. In theory, I could limit my grocery store trips to one visit to Costco and one to Trader Joe's each month to get meat, cheese, and grains. Since we just moved to a new place, I decided to resume my previously futile attempts to find my fairy food-mother.
I tried out Spud! for awhile. The great thing about their site is that they have a huge selection of products, and you can order as much or as little as you want as often as you like. Or you can just set it up to send you certain things automatically at a set frequency. In practice, the business seems to be having growing pains. They changed my delivery from FedEx to a courier, which saved me money, but they never updated the delivery dates on my online profile. It was a little frustrating when I wasn't sure whether my food would be delivered in time for key holiday meals. I had to wrangle with them to give me the $5 off from the coupon they sent with my order that just said "simply visit www.spud.com and place your next order to get an appreciation discount." They forgot to pick up my old packaging. Things like that. They have friendly customer service people who took care of things quickly, but it was still kind of a pain to have to ask them to in the first place. They have some good ideas, though, so I might try them again in 6 months or so once they've had a chance to get their feet wet.
In the meantime, I'm excited to try Farm Fresh to You in a few weeks. Their claim is that most of what I'll be getting comes from a farm north of here. They don't have as much flexibility as Spud! does, but the service is cheaper, and I've already heard good things about the produce they deliver and the reliability of the service from a couple of co-workers.
Who magically leaves food at your doorstep? What do you like/dislike about the service?
I stopped using Spud! a couple of years ago. I often received the wrong items and my orders began to seem a little "light" (as in less quantity than ordered) so I finally started weighing things on my Salter scale and checking them off the packing list. Sure enough! I was getting less food than I paid for. In the end, they failed to pick up my bins although I begged them to come and get them. I offered to take them to their premises and they declined my offer. Then, at the end, they actually charged me for the bins and threatened to send my account to collections if I didn't pay.
I use Amazon Fresh now for home delivery and mostly love their service.
Posted by: HypFoods | January 11, 2010 at 12:25 AM