Social distancing at grocery stores these days means that you either get stuck waiting for longer than you plan to or trying to secure a spot in supermarkets' growing waiting lists for delivery—unless the grocery store parks right outside your door.
A Toronto, Ontario start-up called Grocery Neighbour has plans to become the world's first grocery store on wheels with a fleet of mobile supermarkets. These could offer anything from fresh meats and fish to produce and local specialty items with a system not that different from an ice cream truck rolling up your street.
The system seems simple enough: Using an app, users can receive notifications for when a mobile supermarket is either on their street, or a truck can tracked until it's close enough to access.
"We'll have technology to tell you when it's pulling up, or to notify you to where the grocery truck is," Toronto entrepreneur Frank Sinopoli of Grocery Nieghbour explained in an interview with the CBC. "It will be like the ice cream truck when it pulls up: it will create that type of experience."
Three trucks are set to begin operation in the city of Toronto this summer, but the company has hopes to expand its servics to 1,000 trucks operating country-wide in Canada.
The market surrounding groceries and how to get them is becoming an increasingly competitive one. Even companies like Sysco—normally a provider for Canada's restaurants—has flipped part of its operations into home service with Sysco@Home. While that company's used to selling much larger quantities, the response from customers has been positive.
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