What I’ll Miss About London, Part 2: Ocado

It didn’t take long after moving to London to discover that hauling groceries home was a lot of work when you don’t have a car. No more going to Target or Publix and loading up a big trunkload of heavy cans, bulky toilet paper, and cumbersome cases of Coke. Which explains why Londoners visit their local Tesco or corner grocer nearly every day, and why grocery delivery has been a raging success.

I quickly adapted to this way of life. Grocery delivery for the weekly “big shop” and then a walk around the corner to get fresh stuff or things that I just couldn’t quite manage to fit into my pantry-less and desperately-lacking-in-cupboard-space kitchen.

And oh how I fell in love with Ocado. This place rocks. An easy-to-use website, one-hour delivery time slots, happy drivers, plentiful amounts of fresh organic produce, color coordinated bags for frozen or cupboard foods, good customer service that is otherwise so noticeably lacking in this country, and even excellent turn-around times on complaint emails (not that I had any, just a few times I had to report a punctured tub of Alpro or blueberries spilled and thus squished in one of the bags).

Even my kids fully embraced the experience of the grocery man coming. Did we run out of fish sticks? “Email the grocery man,” Tadpole would say. Is the Ocado truck here? “Yeah!!!” they would yell and watch him unload his lorry. And then, unpacking the groceries was always a highlight of the week, as the kids would hurriedly open up the bags as if they were birthday presents, and ferry them into the kitchen for me to put away (hey, saved me lots of bending and squatting).

The excitement! The ease! The experience! The event!

Oh, if they only delivered to Florida…