As the northeastern US got hammered by a blizzard yesterday, the New York Times reports that food delivery workers were among those considered to be “essential.”
From the Times coverage:
“During the heaviest snowfall in New York City since 2016, which closed the city’s schools, shuttered Broadway and caused the city’s airports to cancel thousands of flights, New Yorkers still needed their Shake Shack veggie burgers and White Castle shrimp nibblers.
“The burden of carrying food from busy restaurants to cozy apartments fell, as it always does, to the city’s legion of food delivery workers. Even though Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared a state of emergency that banned all but essential vehicles like ambulances, police cars and utility trucks from the roads, the 80,000 deliveristas were among those exempt.
“That meant that any deliverista who felt daring enough was welcome to cycle the streets in near-blizzard conditions. It was treacherous going … By Monday afternoon, after nearly 20 inches of snow had been recorded in Central Park, some of the delivery app companies were offering workers a surge fee of $4 per delivery to incentivize them to stay on the streets, said Ligia M. Guallpa, executive director of Deliveristas Unidos, which represents the workers.”
KC’s View:
As the day – and the storm – wore on, some of the food delivery companies shut down their operations; it simply was too treacherous, too risky, to be doing business.
I mention all this because it is important to emphasize that word – essential.
During the pandemic, businesses and employees in the food industry was deemed to be essential, and it is a word that was celebrated within the sector and by customers who depended on their local food stores. I argued then – and continue to believe – that essential was a word that should be emphasized by food retailers who want to be competitive in a marketplace at once fragmenting and consolidating. Every aspect of one’s operation should be viewed through that prism – how will this help us be more essential to our shoppers?
Whatever your format, whatever your market – being essential is a front line strategy with strong bottom line implications.
For me, Stew Leonard’s was – and is – essential. I went out early Sunday morning to shop (I’d been preoccupied with Parker all-day Saturday) and was able to find everything I needed to make it through the blizzard; we ended up getting between 14 and 16 inches. (Other folks I knew reported that the stores they patronized were picked over, with limited stock.) So the fridge and freezer were full (a bit of a risk, because we could have lost power – but we got lucky), and we were able to enjoy pan fried sole on Sunday night and my “shrimp it’s all Greek to me” dish last night. Lots of eggs, bread, homemade soups, fresh fruit and produce.
To be honest, with plenty of options – Wegmans, Stop & Shop (two of them), Costco, Trader Joe’s, a few independents … I didn’t even consider going elsewhere (and drove past almost all of them on my way to Stew’s). It has become the essential food store for me – and that ought to be the strategic and tactical goal for every retailer.
The post As Winter Storm Raged On, Food Delivery Remained Essential appeared first on MNB.
View Original Article
