As little as an hour

Grocery stores have been delivering groceries since the days of horse-drawn wagons. Following World War II, at least in the US, we’d pretty well moved on to self-service, and I well remember my mom poring through Wednesday’s LA Times food section for sales and coupons to be deployed on Thursday. But then, maybe eight to ten years ago, the notion of ordering all your food online and having it delivered reshaped the whole landscape.

One of my neighbors in the Valley They Call Silicon had a regular delivery from Safeway; the driver had to schlepp crates of food up because my building had no elevator. Perhaps that’s precisely why my neighbor used the service.

These days there are multiple services, both supermarket-specific and just-in-general ones. There’s an app; of course there is.

Wegman’s, the New York-based chain, is one of the markets that will fill your order for pick-up or delivery. I often see their proxy shoppers using the app throughout the store. But recently I saw an entirely new take on the whole delivery schtick:

Now, that’s a service whose time has come.