Who Really Needs 15-Minute Grocery Delivery?

A new ser­vice that promis­es 15-minute gro­cery deliv­ery at no addi­tion­al cost “is the log­i­cal end­point of a deliv­ery-speed arms race that began 15 years ago Ama­zon Prime guar­an­teed two-day deliv­ery for mil­lions of items,” writes Aaron Gor­don. Ralf Wen­zel “says Jokr offers a more sus­tain­able approach to food than the cur­rent gro­cery indus­try’s sta­tus quo, and that cer­tain ideas about how to improve the effi­cien­cy of gro­cery deliv­ery will allow the to thrive.”

Aside con­cerns about exploita­tive labor prac­tices, experts ques­tion the ben­e­fits to con­sumers of such rapid-deliv­ery ser­vices. “These com­pa­nies oper­ate only in dense urban neigh­bor­hoods where a gro­cery store is rarely more than a 10-minute away.” For Gor­don, promis­es of near-instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion speak to the “dreams of a cer­tain kind of urban dweller” who sees “every spon­ta­neous pub­lic inter­ac­tion is an inef­fi­cien­cy to be solved.”

Gor­don points to dock­less share that failed to make a prof­it and left cities lit­tered with defunct bikes, food deliv­ery ser­vices that “have thrown the restau­rant indus­try into per­il,” and ride-hail­ing ser­vices that have increased con­ges­tion and car­bon emis­sions as oth­er indus­tries that “popped out of nowhere” thanks to ven­ture cap­i­tal funds and cre­at­ed and soci­etal prob­lems. Already, one of these com­pa­nies, Goril­las, is to rec­on­cile the ultra-fast deliv­ery dream with decent work­ing con­di­tions. The start­up is fac­ing work­er unrest in Europe as deliv­ery orga­nize thanks to gru­el­ing deliv­ery sched­ules and safe­ty con­cerns.

Urban plan­ning pro­fes­sor David King argues that “this idea of every­thing being deliv­ered makes the city much more tran­si­to­ry, because we’re not expe­ri­enc­ing the city, we’re not get­ting out.” To King, “these 15-minute ser­vices are miss­ing some­thing impor­tant about what cities are and why peo­ple like liv­ing in them.” The goal of city life for most peo­ple, he argues, is not “opti­miz­ing and effi­cien­cy.” Mov­ing about the city is an essen­tial part of liv­ing in one. As King puts it, “inter­est­ing things hap­pen when you leave the house.”

Read More

Leave a Comment