For several years now I’ve been getting a weekly or fortnightly grocery delivery from Morrisons. It’s been extremely convenient, though I have wondered how on Earth they make it profitable. While I’ve been in Coronavirus quarantine for the past few weeks, the online shopping and delivery has been an absolute lifeline. However, the whole country seems to have woken up to the benefits of online grocery shopping and it’s been getting harder and harder to secure a delivery slot.
Morrisons has realised that it is unable to serve a large percentage of its potential customers, and obviously that is not a comfortable position for any business. But it appears they simply don’t have the staff or capacity at the moment to temporarily expand their online shopping service enough to meet the demand. So they have, very creatively in my opinion, come up with a work around. They offer a box of groceries for £35, delivered by courier on a day of your choice, and claiming to contain enough food to feed a family of two for a week. The disadvantage is that you don’t get to pick the food – you get what you’re given, either a meat-eater’s box or a vegetarian box. You still have to queue online to book one, but the delivery slots are far easier to get than a regular shop. So I thought I’d give it a go.
My first £35 food parcel arrived today, on time, and well packaged in a cardboard box. The cold items were packed in an insulated bag with some still-frozen ice-packs. In my meat-eater’s box there was:
- 1L longlife milk
- 10 pork sausages
- pack of 2 chicken fillets
- pack of 500g mince
- 4 slices of ham
- big block of Cathedral City cheddar
- pack of back bacon
- pack of butter
- bag of new potatoes
- bag of onions
- bag of carrots
- a small cabbage
- a cucumber
- a pot of tomato and basil pasta sauce
- tin of vegetable soup
- tin of tomato soup
- 3x small tins of baked beans
- loaf of sliced white bread
- pack of pitta breads
- portion of microwave rice
- pack of penne pasta
- pack of 2 kitchen towels
- last, but definitely not least, a pack of 4 toilet rolls.
There’s enough there to keep me going for a while. It’s not all stuff I would have chosen myself, but there is nothing there that I’m not prepared to eat. I can see the makings of a good few entirely acceptable dinners there, as well as soup or ham&cheese toasties for lunch. And the kitchen paper and loo rolls are very welcome additions.
All in all, I’m very impressed with the quality and variety, and at £35 including delivery, it seems a very good deal. If (when?) this crisis continues I will certainly consider getting another one.
{ 2 } Comments
Oh No !, not white bread, would have to be wholemeal and need to have some cat food in it. Probably still cheaper at Aldi, and you get excuse to go out for drive on nice quiet roads.
25 mile round trip to supermarkets for us, i’m really looking forward to it each week, B roads normally quiet now there dead, its lovely. Coop are only store ive seen actively disinfecting trolley handles.
Sounds like a great service, although somewhat concerned about your declared preparedness to eat everything on a list that includes kitchen-roll and toilet roll. (Mathematicians mantra: almost never claim “for all”.)