FreshDirect, an online grocer and staple of home-shoppers from Manhattan to Queens, and from Brooklyn to the Bronx for the past eight years, plans to make inroads into the Jersey suburbs with a massive expansion that will see it delivering farm-fresh vegetables, fruit and fish, to as many as 29 communities in Essex and Union counties over the next two months.
Indeed, this morning, FreshDirect made its first delivery in Montclair – to Mayor Jerry Fried at the Municipal Building – a courtesy order, made up of a mix of fresh produce, deli items and prepared meals – that will be donated to the Montclair Human Needs Food Pantry.
Rick Braddock, CEO of FreshDirect, said the company was “growing so fast we’re having trouble satisfying demand.”
“We plan to get further into NJ than this, it’s part of a rolling expansion, and we’re also expanding in Connecticut.”
The company sources produce, fish and meat directly from farms, prepares orders hours before delivery, and says that by eliminating the middleman, it “passes savings directly to customers.”
FreshDirect’s prices are said to be as much as 20% cheaper than those of regular grocery stores, and without the middleman, likely much fresher, too.
“We buy everything direct, so the supply chain to customers is one to two weeks faster than (that of the) traditional grocery chains,” Braddock said.
Pricing-wise, he said FreshDirect was likely not as cheap as ShopRite, but was “pretty well (priced under) Whole Foods, a bit above Fairway and under the more traditional grocery players.”
Said Mayor Fried, “The value of this service in a town with a vital farmers’ market, Whole Foods, local coops, and other groceries that sell organic food, is its convenience. It’s a great addition to what we already have in Montclair, which must be the food capital of New Jersey.”
FreshDirect will start taking orders from Montclair, Bloomfield and other cities (see the full list below) from Sept. 30, with first deliveries expected from Oct. 4.
What Essex and Union County customers can look forward to:
-fresh produce, meat, fish, dairy items directly sourced from farms and fisheries and delivered to your door
-quality ratings each day on produce and seafood that help you know what’s best and what’s in season
-much more to pick from in terms of fresh fruit and veg, antibiotic-free chicken, organic and local produce, top-grade meat, sustainable seafood, cheese and deli items than other supermarkets or online grocers
-artisanal coffee, sourced from around the world, ground to your specifications
-meat, seafood and deli items cut to order hours before delivery
-more than 200 types of bread and pastries baked on the company’s premises in Long Island
-more than 600 ready-to-heat meals and side dishes prepared fresh, daily
-for the health conscious, there are 25 chef-prepared meals of 500 calories each to pick from
-a choice of 85 four-minute chef-prepared meals, by top NY chefs, including an ex-Nobu chef who now works for FreshDirect, as well as partnerships with restaurants such as Tabla and Rosa Mexicana
In Essex County, from Oct. 4, FreshDirect will be available to residents of Livingston, West Orange, Montclair, Bloomfield, Nutley, Caldwell, Maplewood, South Orange, Verona, Glen Ridge, Cedar Grove, Fairfield, Millburn, Roseland, Short Hills and Essex Fells.
In Union County, where the first orders will be delivered from Nov. 1, service will be expanded to Westfield, Summit, Cranford, Scotch Plains, Berkeley Heights, New Providence, Springfield, Fanwood, Roselle Park, Mountainside, Clark and Garwood.
Service, meanwhile, will continue to Cliffside Park, Edgewater, Hoboken, North Bergen, Weehawken, Union City, Westchester and Jersey City.
Save the world!
Order small amounts of organic produce brought directly to your door by an 18,000 pound diesel truck!
The food capital of New Jersey? Oh brother.
Sorta like the fashion capital of West Virginia, gurl.
This is actually one of the few times I agree with a ROC comment. I guess we’ll see how dedicated the Montclair populous is to the environment.
Personally, I like to choose my own produce in person. And having looked at the website (albeit a year ago), I didn’t find the prices more economical than my local grocery store.
I’m very excited. Fresh Direct offers good quality and is very convenient. Sure, you pay a premium for it, but it was one thing I missed after moving here.
I encourage everyone to try it and hope it succeeds here.
First Fairway Paramus, now this. Good news.
LOL RoC! But if it runs on Bio-diesel and makes 5 stops in one run, might that be better than all of us driving to the store separately? (unless of course, we bike to the store)
I agree with Schooled; I don’t trust anyone but myself to get a good box of strawberries. (and even then, I occasionally get fooled when they rearrange them back in the warehouse so that the furry ones are hidden away at the bottom. But I digress.)
I admit that I once availed myself of Shop Rite from home’s pickup service. You how it is when they have the Cottonelle 24-pack and 120-load box of Tide on sale: you have to make a separate run for the regular groceries because not everything will fit on the cart. Yes I suppose I could go there after work, go in and get my 126 rolls of toilet tissue and year’s worth of Tide, wait in line to pay, schlepp it to the car, then go BACK inside for the food. (if I wanted to get home at like, 9PM!) So I went online, ordered as many packs of tissue allowed under the special, plus the Tide; told them I wanted to pick it up the next day at 5pm; pulled up the following night and went inside (this was early in the service, before I knew that they would actually come out to meet me!) WELL! what a thrill it was to have them wheel my stuff out, put it in the back, and give me a receipt to sign. I felt like a Vanderbilt or something. But, I think the service costs an extra $10 or so, so that goes in the obnoxious luxury column of my household budget.
Shop Rite will also deliver for an additional fee. The absolute pinnacle of extravagance!
But… I could also get used to pulling up to the house and seeing a truck waiting there with one of 700 MRE’s!
Whatever happened to buy local? Last time I looked Whole Foods paid real estate taxes and employed local residents.
I happen to live in Belleville, a literal stone’s throw from Bloomfield and Nutley (ok, maybe more of a short walk from Nutley), so it’s kind of interesting that this service is available to residents of those communities but not to me. Bloomfield’s median annual household income is only $5K more than in Belleville, so I’m not sure income has anything to do with it, and certainly if my neighbors a block away can use this service, delivery logistics can’t have anything to with it.
So what is the issue, I wonder? Seems rather arbitrary to me. And unfortunate, too, as an upper-middle-class working professional I would surely love to use their service.
Careful Cary, What local taxes or local residents would privatized garbage collection generate? I wouldn’t necessarily throw stones on this one.
oops.
Careful Cary, What local taxes or employed local residents would privatized garbage collection generate? I wouldn’t necessarily throw stones on this one.
Careful Cary, Sticking up for Whole Foods could get you in a Whole lot of trouble with many Montclair types.
Health Care Stirs Up Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, Customers Boycott Organic Grocery Store
Also, I like shopping for my groceries while not wearing pants, and Whole Foods has their limits as to how progressive they really are.
Seriously, I can compile my shopping list as needs arise, any hour day or night. It is of real value to me not have to drive to a store and run the risk that I might forget something, or that they will be out of stock.
Check out the crew from SR who are picking at their crotch, scratching their armpits and then picking your tomatoes–nice! Like that extra goodness? And now it’s fresh direct right to ya!
IF Lauraloonie means SR = Shoprite, I’ve got to stick up for them. I like the Brookdale Shoprite. I’ve had loads of pleasant experiences there, incredible friendly, and none of them involved my crotch or the crotch of any of the employees. They have a much better produce selection – both organic and none – than the A&P, and they are just as happy to help out as the Montclair Whole Foods employees.
I’ve only been to the West Orange Whole Foods once, and it was too full of difficult and pushy customers to make a return visit.
Said Mayor Fried, “The value of this service in a town with a vital farmers’ market, Whole Foods, local coops, and other groceries that sell organic food, is its convenience. It’s a great addition to what we already have in Montclair, which must be the food capital of New Jersey.”
Another idiotic gem from the mayor.
Let’s change the product and company. The quote becomes: “Amazon.com is a great addition to all the great bookstores we have in town.”
I’m pretty sure the people selling at the farmers market, coops, Whole Foods, and even some of the local Organic eateries take issue with your assessment, Mr. Mayor.
Actually I find myself in the weird position to defend the mayor a bit. Restaurants are the only growth business in mtc. Not much here besides that and I am not counting churches or private schools which are not generating taxes for us.
Alas, if the mayor would put wood behind this arrow then the parking authority would generate a profit and church st would have been converted to a pedestrian zone long ago.
“FreshDirect’s prices are said to be as much as 20% cheaper than those of regular grocery stores”
“Pricing-wise, he said FreshDirect was likely not as cheap as ShopRite”
Those are rather contradictory statements, unless, in someone’s world, ShopRite is not a “regular grocery store.”
I’m second what jimf has to say. I live in the Silver Lake section of Belleville – exactly one block east of Bloomfield, and one block west of Newark.
I can get Dickie Dee’s Italian hot dogs delivered, but Fresh Direct won’t come to me? A pox on them!
A week ago I was in WF; peppers were rotted, they were out of blueberries and cucumbers. A while back A&P’s avocados, with the additional label “ripe,” were rock hard; produce manager’s indifferent comment, “that’s the way we get them.” ShopRite’s food might best bargain, but not if you include the cost of repairing the inevitable dings in your car. There are better options – WF in Millburn, Fairway in Paramus, Corrados for produce – but each are a good twenty minutes away. With a little bit of luck – and my biggest hope – Fresh Direct will force the local merchants to raise their game (btw, we used FD a lot when we lived in the city, I agree that the produce wasn’t always perfect, but they always responded to complaints. Furthermore, their website is extraordinarily informative.