How many customers does freshdirect have

Fresh Direct, founded in to deliver groceries and fresh food to New Yorkers, has suddenly become an essential service amid the social lockdown resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. And while McInernery declined to give specifics, he did say the company is making some adjustments to pay for its delivery workers, whom he likens to first responders just like public safety officials. Within the adult beverage department, Vodka is growing very fast. It started in early March, I think about the 5th, it came out of nowhere.

The demand for online shopping is huge, tremendous, and we are doing the best that we can to fill what we can. All indications are that people are super appreciative of that. How are you keeping them safe, and are you compensating them above and beyond what you would normally? McInerney: I think they see themselves as first responders, people out on the front lines, no different than police, firefighters, or doctors.

We did make some adjustments. Yes, of course we did that and we want keep them safe. Frankly, it could never be enough. I walk around the city thanking people, I saw a couple police officers and thanked them and I saw a Fresh Direct truck and I went and said the same thing. MarketWatch: You sent out a note last week saying one warehouse worker had tested positive for the virus. Can you reassure customers that the food coming into their homes is safe? We are delivering to , households in a week via 3, people, keeping those people out of stores and off the streets.

This has been a shift that this country has never seen, how consumers are consuming food. We went in a matter of weeks from people eating a few meals at home to today virtually all meals at home. We have to be nimble and adjust in real time. I think all retailers are doing a phenomenal job. Yes, we would like to see within our customer group each day buying the food they need for the week not weeks ahead.

And what happens from here is, we're actually directing the food to where it has to go. So in that system, it knows those tomatoes, what place they have to go within the warehouse.

Narrator : Next, the new inventory is moved to all the appropriate fridges or storage areas. Pantry and shelf-stable goods are forklifted onto these giant inventory walls.

Some goods are moved through this facility in as little as an hour and a half. Knoll : You can actually read the dates on those labels, and you'll see they're all about a week or less old. What's insane is the speed at which it moves.

Narrator : Fresh produce ends up in temperature-controlled fridges. There are 38 different temperature zones throughout this facility. Knoll : For example, bananas, they like about 65 degrees.

They like a certain amount of humidity. Narrator : A traditional grocery store is built with temperatures that make human shoppers happy. McInerney : You, as a consumer, could walk into a bricks-and-mortar grocery store in the middle of the summer in shorts and flip-flops and be totally comfortable.

It's not good for the food because it detracts from the shelf life. There's no food on display here. All that food is tucked away, on ice, in the proper temperature, and is only taken out when it's needed.

So we just have less waste as opposed to a bricks-and-mortar store. Narrator : FreshDirect says catering to a food's ideal climate extends its shelf life up to seven days beyond a traditional grocery store's.

Knoll : We have a room that's at 55 degrees for things like tomatoes. We have a room at 45 degrees for things like onions and potatoes. They like colder temperatures. Knoll : This fish is probably two days out of the water, and it's here from Nova Scotia. So our fishermen, they actually go out, these are harpoon-caught swordfish. Narrator : The supply chain has such a tight turnaround that a customer could place an order for a fish in, say, Alaska, and within a day or two it'll be fished out and flown to this facility.

McInerney : There are times where we could sell fish to a consumer five days out that's not actually landed in a boat yet. Narrator : Once all the items are inventoried, they don't sit around long before they're picked up and tugged to one of 12 kitchens.

Fruits and veggies for precut packages are chopped in one room. Upstairs, the bakery starts buzzing in the early morning.

Orlando Farino : We could do anywhere from 13, to 18, finished goods per day. Narrator : These chefs make more than different prepared dishes. In the cold room, they're pulling together shrimp cocktails, ravioli, cheese boards, and salads. In the hot room, it's salmon, stews, chicken fingers, and one of the most popular items, rotisserie chicken.

Down the hall, fish are filleted. Crawford : Yeah, Juvie actually also has some black cod right there, also known as butterfish or sablefish, out of British Columbia. Juvie, how many years cutting fish? Narrator : And here, over cuts of meat are butchered a day. They're sliced right as orders come in to help cut down on food waste. But when COVID hit, meat orders spiked so much, the team had to lessen the variety of meat cuts until they could catch up with the demand.

Lovando Belcher : We took a look at that volume and said, "OK, these are the steaks that we have the most volume on, these are the steaks that we're gonna feature. Narrator : Once workers finish preparing all the food, the real work begins: pulling all the items for an order together. The average order FreshDirect gets is about 30 items, which might not sound like a lot, but McInerney : On a relatively busy week now, we're delivering to north of , houses, and if each of those houses has 30 items in their delivery, we're moving 3 million different food items out of, in essence, one mega facility.

Narrator : Each order that comes in gets assigned a box. To make sure all 30 items end up in the right box, the company has been perfecting an AI system for nearly two decades. The system tracks when each item comes in and the expiration date. Then it finds the most efficient route along nine miles of conveyor belts to move the box to all the right pick stations.

Each pick station has one worker and a selection of products the worker grabs from and places in the corresponding box. This picker has pantry goods and toiletries at her station. Knoll : So it tells her what item, she'll scan it, it'll verify it's the right item, she'll confirm that she put it in the customer's bag, and now it'll go to the next person.

But you can see the speed with which she can pick these items. Rather than walking around a store all day, the work comes to her. Narrator : But it isn't set up like a normal grocery store, where all the, say, tomato sauces are together.

To even out the workload, high-ticket items, like olive oil, are paired with lower-ticket items, like organic baby food, at one pick station. Knoll : We call it slotting the building. So the fewer stops that we make in our store with our totes as they go through, the more efficient we can be. Narrator : After a worker picks the right item, they hit a green button, and the order box zooms off to the next station. After visiting sometimes dozens of pick stations, an order can finally be complete.