# In praise of Peapod **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 21, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139 "2009-05-21T02:59:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/21 "2009-05-21T21:48:54Z")
I’d like to try some sort of service like that because it would assuredly save me money - I’d plan my menu, order what I need, and not get other stuff while shopping hungry. I’m not sure I trust them, though, plus they aren’t here anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/22 "2009-05-22T02:31:32Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > I remember a “Peapod” grocery delivery service. I thought it went out of business years ago. Did someone buy the name? I think around the dot-com era there were no less than 412 different Peapod type services, and today only Peapod (and smaller regional stuff) has survived. “Webvan” comes to mind as one of the 411 that are now gone. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/23 "2009-05-22T02:32:40Z")
> [@melodyharmonius](#): > > I LOVE PEAPOD! > > However, I don’t currently live in a state they service. > > After working 50-60 hours a week, I loved driving home and having groceries delivered to my house. They would bring it right inside, let me unpack it, and take all the plastic bags back with them. I could hand them the coupons I had at the door and they would automatically deduct them. > > And saving orders made 75% of my order take less than 2 minutes to re-order. And it was easy to take my Sunday flyer coupons and shop specifically for the items. > > As for produce and bakery items, they would let me examine them and refuse them at delivery if I thought they sucked. They would adjust the cost off my bill. (But, to be honest, I usually did my produce shopping at a nearby farm stand, so it didn’t really factor in to my regular shopping anyway.) > > Also, I had the same delivery guy (Brian) each week. In fact, quick funny story: > > Every 2 weeks I ordered a case of individually wrapped toilet paper and 2 dozen bars of soap. One day, I noticed Brian trying to peer down the hallway as he stood waiting for me. > > “It’s just you and your hubby, right?” he asked cautiously. > > I nodded. > > “That’s a lot of toilet paper” he finally said. > > I burst out laughing. “Umm - we donate it to the local food bank run by our church,” I explained. > > After that, he would just load the stuff directly in my car for me. He even got his supervisor to donate some extra cases now and again. > > When we moved out of the Peapod service area - I started using Schwan’s. Much more expensive, but it was semi-prepared food so it helped make dinners easier to throw together. And their ice cream was awesome. > > Now it’s just me, and I don’t really do a lot of food shopping except on weekend’s. And the grocery store is literally right down the street. > > But if I was ever doing regular shops again, I would search for a grocery shopping service again. Wow, you are the queen of Peapod. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/24 "2009-05-22T03:04:05Z")
In NYC, FreshDirect rules the roost. Unlike Peapod, FreshDirect is an entirely independent grocery with no “terrestrial” storefront (just a giant honking mechanized warehouse in Queens). They have lots of prepared & semi prepared foods, often in conjuction with popular NYC chefs, as well as standard groceries. Edited to add: their prices are _slightly_ higher than NYC grocery stores, but only slightly, and no schlepping on the heavy items. It’s pretty freaking sweet, but the amount of packaging made me feel guilty. That, and the fact that my local grocery store is actually _across the street_ from me. That and there’s a Trader Joes 5 minutes away. So, yeah, I had to quit cold turkey on account of the overwhelming guilt. But the service was sooooo good. Sweet, sweet, laziness. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/25 "2009-05-22T15:02:51Z")
[quote=“Mama\_Zappa, post:15, topic:497139”] [ul] [li]We never knew which items would actually arrive: a lot of times, some critical items would be out of stock and not included in the order. Every order was missing at least one such item. So we had to plan on going to the store anyway.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] Yep. And often they’d substitute an item, and it was not always a great substitute. On one particular October 30th, I ordered, among other nom noms, a large pumpkin. They were out, so instead they brought a can of pumpkin pie filling. That was one son of a bitch to carve, I can tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/26 "2009-05-22T16:06:51Z")
They’ve been great on weekends when we’re too busy to shop, but the produce is not the best, and our eggs are often broken. The variety is also somewhat less than Giant’s stores. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/27 "2009-05-22T16:19:49Z")
As a working single Mom, it’s the bomb! Especially for the super big Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping. I wish they had more large/bulk sizes (the only Bisquick they carry herre is a 5 or 7 oz envelope!) and more baby stuff (they’ve never had Formula that worked for Celtling.) It would seem to me that new parents would be a core market for them if they’d just cater to us a bit more! Anyway, I love , and use it all the time. My favorite thing is that you can type in your store card number, and it brings up a list of items you buy regularly. (Face it George, Big Brother does have some merits. . .) The only thing I didn’t like was the one time I used the drop-off service (They leave the food in boxes and coolers when you’re not at home.) they warn you not to throw away the boxes or you’ll be charged a fee. And I didn’t want to anyway, after all they are re-useable! But after a month of them sitting on my front porch, I tossed them. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139/28 "2009-05-22T16:30:37Z")
The service I use, you’ve got three choices for what happens if they’re out of something: 1. Same brand, different size 2. Same size, different brand 3. No substitutions [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-peapod/497139.md?page=1)