Comment on What even is the point of delivery anymore
maynarkh@feddit.nl 9 months agoI get everything delivered as well. It costs me 20 EUR a month to get unlimited free deliveries from Albert Heijn. Prices are similar or the same as in store, I even get the same store discounts, sometimes they give me a free bottle of beer. They also take away my old plastic bottles, and deliver to my door of my umpteenth floor flat. Tips are not expected, no option in the app, the drivers actually run away to the next place as fast as they can after I pay.
I don’t see the problem with it. It’s good on the environment as well, since I’m better able to plan groceries, I have less food waste, and it is more efficient to truck the groceries to me than everyone making the trip separately.
evranch@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Questionable whether it’s actually better for the environment as the truck runs every day.
I would say it’s better to have a large deep freeze as the energy it consumes yearly likely wouldn’t even get you to the store and back once.
I go to the city about once a month and go to Costco, which is really a central location that they truck all of the groceries to, and fill my vehicle completely full of the things I can’t grow and store way out here in the middle of nowhere.
I run 2 freezers actually, one I fill with meat when we butcher in the fall, the other with vegetables and fruit from the summer, as well as carbs like perogies, tortillas, breads and buns etc.
I know that obviously most people can’t do this to my extent but you can buy a 1/4 beef from a farmer, 1/2 pork, frozen fruit and veg from Costco, sausage from a butcher and so on. Then you barely have to shop at all.
The convenience sounds great but I would say that’s the main purpose, not environmental reasons. Also, I would be in for the free beer!
maynarkh@feddit.nl 9 months ago
The environmental gains come in when me and my 1500 neighbours don’t all go to the supermarket one by one, by car or even public transit, but the supermarket delivers a truckload of stuff to us at the same time. Saves the energy of getting 1500 people to the supermarket and back. Consequently, there are fewer people in the supermarket as well, so those are smaller, need less parking spaces, the city has less traffic and all sorts of knock-on effects.
Facebones@reddthat.com 9 months ago
Can you freeze fruit and veggies like that? Me and my ex always meant to get a chest freezer but then covid happened and they were nowhere to be found for two years 😂
evranch@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Super easy, we don’t even blanch. We grow like 20lbs of bush beans, cut tips and tails and chunk to an inch or so long, freeze in bags. Toss straight into a soup or stir fry from frozen. Same for beet tops when we harvest the beets, rinse and chop the tops into packable size, dump into just about anything and they are like fresh.
Some vegetables just do not freeze though, no salads of course, only the kinds that you cook.
I rarely buy fresh fruits except for apples these days as they are always poor quality here, and frozen are excellent and far cheaper. Especially berry type fruit like cherries, blueberries, strawberries etc as they go straight from the field to the freezer plant when they are ripe unlike the supermarket crap.
We keep our own apples in the fridge and cellar, same with carrots, beets, potatoes. Onions hang in the basement. Crabapples we have a huge bounty of and core and quarter and freeze, they are great in a fruit smoothie, pie, applesauce etc.
I would highly recommend an upright freezer over a chest aside from secondary bulk meat storage. I have both, the upright you can select your food much better instead of just eating what’s on top. Everyone says they will dig in the chest, NOBODY DOES. Modern uprights have similar efficiency and power failure performance, and nothing ends up freezer burnt at the bottom.
Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
Albert Heijn makes me think Netherlands, and tall building probably means big city (Amsterdam or maybe Brussels in Belgium…i think AH is big there too) so there’s a good chance it may be a cyclist / cargo bike delivering the food. It flips the American shop-bulk-and-store method on its head.
maynarkh@feddit.nl 9 months ago
I’m in the Randstad, guilty as charged. Not quite Amsterdam though.
It’s actually an electric microtruck or sometimes a full truck, since a bunch of people order out here and a single truck carries many people’s groceries. The guys usually get a dolly and have a few laps up and down the cargo elevator.
If I order anything for quick delivery like a pizza, it’s always a cyclist or rarely an electric moped. A car wouldn’t even find a parking spot, much less get through the city in time.