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by JohnFen 240 days ago
There's a world of difference between buying produce and buying a more durable good. Produce has a short shelf life, and it is not uniform. When I'm selecting produce, I'm not only looking for it to be fresh (or sometimes even at a very specific ripeness point), but I'm also often looking for a specific size, or more rarely, but sometimes, for some other specific physical characteristic. I wouldn't trust a stranger to be able to tell which piece I want. Obviously, how true this is depends on the specific crop. Lettuce, for instance, is fairly interchangeable, and grains such as wheat are entirely interchangeable.

If I buy something sight unseen from Amazon, I can return it if it wasn't exactly what I wanted. With produce, even if I could actually return it, there's no way it's getting resold, so it's instant food waste. So I feel that it's inherently unreturnable. Also, it would mean that I'd likely have to make an unplanned trip to the store to buy a replacement, or do without, for the meal I was planning to use it in.

It all seems like a bunch of potential inconvenience and bother that can be easily avoided by just going to the market.

I don't want to sound negative about the idea despite all of this -- this is very specific to my own situation and location. Most of the world lives differently than I do (that's true of all of us.) I could see it working, at least in some markets. And there are food deserts that could be excellently served by something like this, especially if there's a delivery component.

1 comments

I can’t express how much I really appreciate the feedback and your time for sharing! If I could get you a coffee, or a drink of your choice I would! Lol… thanks again!