FreshDirect's Sweetheart Deal Leaves the Bronx Sucking on Fumes

When I first heard that the company FreshDirect was moving to the South Bronx, I have to admit that I was little bit excited. I aspire to eat healthy foods and I know how much money I would save if I relied more on groceries and less on eating out. But as a busy young professional who lives and works in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the South Bronx, I often fall short. I wind up eating ham, egg & cheese sandwiches from the corner deli for breakfast and Chinese takeout meals for dinner. I’m embarrassed to admit that I sometimes even make late night runs to White Castle, Kennedy Fried Chicken, or McDonalds when I have no food in the fridge.

Living in the South Bronx makes good grocery shopping a major event. If I want to get organic foods, high quality fruits and vegetables, and boutique healthy meals like quinoa salads, farm-raised salmon, or vegan dumplings, I’ve got to make my way out of the borough to Fairway, Trader Joe’s, or Whole Foods. The food I get there is worth the trek – but it’s not time or cost effective. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, I thought, if FreshDirect could deliver groceries straight to my door. And if they were relocating less than half a mile from where I currently live.

I went to the company’s website and was greeted by the slogan “we know local” right next to the New to Fresh Direct box, with an invitation to “Enter your Zip Code to see if we deliver in your area.” I eagerly typed in my Zip Code – 10454 – the same neighborhood to which FreshDirect is relocating. A window popped up informing me: “HOME DELIVERY IS NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR AREA.”

I checked to see where FreshDirect actually does deliver and saw that they provide their delivery service to Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Nassau County, Westchester, New Jersey, and even Connecticut - but nowhere in the entire Bronx (save for Riverdale, our wealthy cousin to the North, which steadfastly disavows its affiliation with the rest of the borough). A company that will receive over $130 million dollars in tax breaks, grants, and tax credits is moving where it won’t even provide services. Instead, FreshDirect will bring 130 delivery trucks driving through our street and produce more than 10 tons of waste every day in a community that already has one of the highest rates of asthma and other environmentally related heath problems. As FreshDirect sends its trucks out from our neighborhood, we in the South Bronx are left with nothing but exhaust, chemicals, and garbage.

It might have worked out better for everyone. The subsidies given by the city, the state, and the borough could have incentivized FreshDirect to develop green strategies to improve the environmental conditions in a community with one of the highest asthma rates in the country, ensure that the jobs provide a living wage for local residents who suffer from an unemployment rate twice the city’s average, and distribute desperately needed fresh foods and vegetables to the community’s poor children and families. Instead, this sweetheart deal leaves the people of the South Bronx sucking on fumes, as FreshDirect increases its profits delivering their foods everywhere but the community where they will operate.