FreshDirect CEO: Seismic Shift In How People Want To Buy Food

“It’s a remarkable time in that we’re witnessing the beginning of a seismic shift in terms of consumer preference in how they want to buy their food,” says FreshDirect CEO David McInerney. “What we’ve seen is within the cities that we operate, New York, Philadelphia, DC, we’ve seen the urban dwellers migrate out to the suburbs. As they migrate out they are taking FreshDirect with them.”

David McInerney, CEO, and co-founder of FreshDirect, discusses how the pandemic has caused a boom in how people want to buy their food:

Witnessing Seismic Shift In How Consumers Want To Buy Food

Overall, the growth continues to be tremendous both in the cities and in the suburbs. It’s a remarkable time in that we’re witnessing the beginning of a seismic shift in terms of consumer preference in how they want to buy their food. What we’ve seen is within the cities that we operate, New York, Philadelphia, DC, we’ve seen the urban dwellers migrate out to the suburbs. As they migrate out they are taking FreshDirect with them.

When you combine that with this iconic truck that we have that everybody knows and then new customers in the suburbs see it and word of mouth goes on. Then all of a sudden we are seeing really explosive growth there as well. Frankly, it’s something that we like a lot. We like the suburban customer because they have really big pantries. They really value fresh food. We’ve had a good time with it thus.

Customers Moved To Suburbs But They Are Coming Back Soon

We’re sort of on the sidelines watching (when people will go back to urban areas again). We are talking to a lot of our customers. The truth is we are hearing from some that they plan on staying wherever they are, whether that’s in a suburb in our trading area or somewhere else in the country. But I think there are a fair amount that are coming back and we’re planning as such. We’re planning to see a significant migration back in September for all three cities.

While the ramp-up will probably not be as strong as we’ve seen in earlier years we’re still expecting growth. There’s also a big chunk of our business which is in the offices. We do a corporate office business as well and that has been pretty much non-existent. We think that will take more time to ramp up but we see that coming back to some extent in September as well.