After watching grocery store clerks fulfil online/phone-in orders I will go to the store myself. Just grabbing the first jug out of the cooler, no checking best before dates, and man handling fruit like grapes not looking at their condition or the ripeness of a pineapple. I'll pick out my own produce!
I assumed this is the kind of stuff I’d be dealing with as an Instacart customer but I’ve actually been quite pleased. I’m an avid cook and a foodie so that’s saying something.
Probably 50% of our orders are produce and I get mostly good quality stuff. Any problem I have with an order- crushed raspberries, a cracked egg- gets reported to Instacart and the response is that they refund my purchase price. So, if my raspberries are crushed, I mix up a big batch of raspberry yogurt with my free raspberries and don't feel the slightest stress over it. One cracked egg means the other 11 are free? I can live with that too.
Ive also figured out to buy produce from Instacart that is supermarket appropriate stuff. I’m never gonna get the same quality in a supermarket peach that I get in a Farmers Market peach, so I don’t buy peaches through Instacart. Supermarket blueberries are pretty good but supermarket strawberries not so much. But still, I am willing to gussy up a supermarket strawberry if I’m getting them on sale for $1.50 per quart. So we’ll have sliced supermarket strawberries over pound cake for dessert tonight. I know I can vastly improve a supermarket strawberry with a little homemade vanilla sugar. And so on: supermarket broccoli, cabbage, onions, romaine, zucchini, bell peppers, potatoes, carrots are fine and they keep well, so that’s what we eat these days.
Obviously each of us needs to find our own way through this pandemic. I have been working throughout and am exposed to a lot of people at work, so I personally can’t justify much more exposure to people than I already have. Hence: Instacart. I’m not trying to convince you to do as I do, because I assume you have your own life well in hand and you know your own risk tolerance and priorities. But I think it’s worth pointing out that for folks in my boat- who can’t really justify trips to the store while simultaneously valuing good quality food- Instacart can indeed be a viable option. It’s not lesser quality food at higher prices, as a lot of folks assume. My first hand experience is good quality food at a slight premium but still affordable cost, with some real upsides from a household inventory management perspective.