A Street Fight Among Grocers To Deliver Your Milk, Eggs, Bananas

Every couple of days, Sinclair Browne fights through traffic in Times Square, squeezes his delivery truck into a parking spot, walks up four flights of stairs and delivers groceries to a guy whose order he knows by heart.

“I’m fast,” said Mr. Browne, slicing his hands in the air, ninja style. “In and out, in and out.”

Delivering food requires military precision: Bananas can’t get cold. Produce can’t get warm. Eggs, of course, must not get broken. And people expect their food to arrive at specific times.

Mr. Browne, 40, is a driver for the online grocery business Peapod. He plays the most important role in solving the biggest problem vexing the online grocery industry: moving food, undamaged and unspoiled, from the warehouse to the customer’s house. It’s known as the last-mile problem.

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