Idea: Fresh Direct + Food Stamps

[Allen Yang]

In the same vein as the post that Dan just sent out about how we can use technology to better the lives of the less-privileged...

What if there were some service that was like Fresh Direct (delivers groceries) but targeted the low-income and allowed them to pay with food stamps? It'd be treading the fine line between a non-profit and for-profit, but perhaps governments (maybe federal? but also maybe state or city level) would be able to foot some or all of the costs of delivery, so that 100% of people's food stamps could go towards actual food.

There are also potentially many ways to save on bulk food. The fruit stands in NYC, for example, get the fruits and vegetables that supermarkets don't want because they don't meet some standard of quality (I think?). It's still perfectly good food though.

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Allen Yang

[Dennis Tang]

Some quick googling results, first of all, in this stupid-ass article. Gee, what "cultural values" might prevent low-income individuals from getting organic local food? I think "Being Poor" ranks up there.

This is an interesting area of thought. My first thought, though, is if the issue we are trying to solve is presumably the "food desert" problem that supposedly exists in urban areas, what is the advantage of delivering the food FreshDirect-style, rather than setting up physical locations in those areas that accept food stamps, etc.? I imagine that FreshDirect's distribution method is for the sake of convenience, not cost. 

Ignoring that, though, I'd also just throw out there that Meals on Wheels already has a similar system, albeit targeted at seniors (some/most of whom are low income).

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Da Junto, mon
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[Allen Yang]

Well, a couple of advantages/points on the delivery vs. brick-and-mortar difference:

-Might save on rental costs? Ie opening a couple of large grocery stores in Harlem/Bronx would probably cost more than renting one larger warehouse in eastern Queens? (I think FreshDirect's NYC warehouse is in Long Island City)

-Might save users time (time it takes to go physically grocery shopping), which might make a bigger difference to the lower income, who have 2 jobs (though how to deliver the food to homes where nobody's home might be a problem)

-Can do a 'subscription' method, where users allocate $X/all of their monthly food stamps, and this company would try to assemble the lowest cost/highest value set of groceries 

-If the low-income actually do care about health, it could serve as a self-binding commitment mechanism to get healthier food

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Allen Yang

[Dennis Tang]

Yeah, I don't know the prices of delivery vs. rent in places I wouldn't live vs. rent in places I really, really wouldn't live. But just given the costs of driving in the NYC area, from gas to time to tolls, I would bet on the cheap real estate. Like, does FreshDirect have lower operating costs than, I dunno, C Town?

It's usually cited that the biggest time obstacle to people eating fresh food is the cooking, since they probably grocery shop for the junk food already. And yeah, if the problem is that these people don't have time because they work, then deliveries might have to work entirely after-hours, too, which would also increase costs.

Given that the food isn't ready-made, I imagine that choosing what people will have to cook for them might not good over well, but the convenience of automatic subscriptions might be just as useful as it is to rich people.

And in general, I'm wondering how much actually money/stampage this would save low-income households, barring government assistance (which is already present in the form of stamps anyway). Given that the two biggest obstacles to healthy eating are cost of ingredients and hassle of preparation (the latter of which, let's face it, is a big problem for us, not just poor people), this seems like a possible solution to the food desert problem but not the food choice one -- as long as fresh food costs X more stamps, regardless of the availability or delivery mechanism.

All that said, this is a great problem to put minds to. Way better than, say, 3D-scanning rich people's apartments or writing about sports or some shit.