Web site brings the supermarket to the poor

Salt shakers
March 2001

Web site brings supermarket to the poor
Tomato pickers target Taco Bell

Web site brings supermarket to the poor
There are not many technoptimists left who think the Internet will save the world, but a program in a low-income Detroit neighborhood without a single supermarket is proving it can at least deliver a bag of groceries to hungry people.

The inner-city residents of Brewster Douglass public housing complex had trouble buying food for a long time. There are two grocery stores in the area, one just over a mile away. The trip is not bad in a car, but without one shopping can be an ordeal. Because many of the neighbors don't have transportation, they have resorted to paying friends for rides or turning to higher-priced convenience stores closer to home. Until now that is.

Warren Whatley, an economics and African-American and African studies professor at the University of Michigan, has come up with a high-tech solution. He has created an Internet company that lets people buy food over the web using computers at a neighborhood technology center. The customers can then pick up their order the next day back at the center. They save money, too.

"You just come in and place an order on screen," says Janice Bean, a service representative at FreshOnLine, Whatley's e-food company. "We offer a 10-percent discount every time and we accept competitors coupons. We won't be undersold."

FreshOnLine, which opened for business in February, is based out of the Community Technological Center in Brewster Douglass. Residents drop into the office where a five-person staff is available to help them use the computers, Bean says. They log onto the web site, make selections from a shopping list, and total up the price of their purchases. They then pay a cashier at the office using money, food stamps, or other government vouchers.

FreshOnLine buys food directly from wholesalers who deliver it to the neighborhood office the next day, where customers can pick it up. Office employees bring orders to the elderly or homebound.

Currently the company is operating only in Detroit, but it has expansion plans for Chicago, New York, and Baltimore. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the University of Michigan, and private donors have all helped fund the project, but Bean says the organizers plan to eventually turn a profit so the program can be self-sustaining.—Anne Graber

Back to page top