FreshDirect has taken another turn for the worse, at least in LIC/HP.
Obligatory disclaimer: We are in a heat wave, and this is absolutely not a complaint about any individual delivery drivers, who are busting their ass in sauna-like temps. This is about FreshDirect’s choices and operational collapse.
It seems FreshDirect quietly stopped using refrigerated trucks and drivers for the vast majority of deliveries to Long Island City / Hunter’s Point (and likely elsewhere). This shift from their own crews to gig workers in personal vehicles happened a while ago, but it has ramped up recently. Now that it's summer, the change is having serious consequences.
My past few orders have arrived with spoiled perishables, meat, and dairy. My order today arrived an hour past its 1 to 3 p.m. window. It was delivered out of the back of a personal, unrefrigerated car in 100-degree weather.
Because the order sat in a hot car for hours, the perishable items were completely ruined:
- Half-and-half and buttermilk cartons were swollen, and the contents temped at close to 80 degrees.
- A plastic container of guacamole had exploded from the heat, its contents also measuring nearly 80 degrees.
- Raw chicken was warm to the touch.
- Everything was piled into the bags so tightly that strawberries and chips were crushed to the point of being largely unusable.
The entire value proposition for FreshDirect was convenience and also quality, reliability, and consistency. Their meats and produce were typically vastly superior to the grocery stores in pretty much every neighborhood I’ve lived in, with lots of local suppliers. Even if that remains true at the warehouse, it is now a crapshoot as to whether that quality will actually reach your home. Someone who is not paying attention might receive spoiled groceries like I did, put them away, and then use them later and ultimately get sick. Maybe that is what it will take for FreshDirect to pay attention.
It seems this change is in part due to union busting, which on its own is enough to make me walk away after nearly 20 years. A predictable, wasteful outcome of letting private equity fleece yet another business to the detriment of its customers, employees, and community.