It’s almost certainly the only market in the Netherlands to have a delivery option
Translated by Thomas Ansell
If you’ve got a specific hunger for a fresh herring, but no particular will to go to the market, you’re in luck! “Within two hours you can get that taste”, says John Gruter. From September, Gruter will be delivering groceries from Groningen’s market place to city-dwellers front doors.
He’s just about the only person to do that in the entire Netherlands, says Gruter, who is originally from Utrecht. It’s for “families with two working people, for example, that don’t have time to go to the market during the day; or for elderly people that don’t want to walk in the rain, but still want good fresh food from the market”.
Along with Jeroen Coopman, from Onderdendam, Gruter will deliver the market goodies on a special electric Bakfiets. At the moment, the website (bezorgbakkie.nl) is being finalized, but soon “people can look for various things: so for example if you search ‘carrots’, then you get an overview of all the vegetable dealers on the market. So if you always go to one stall, you still can choose that one.”
This way you can still get a little taste of the market stall/customer relationship; and build up a rapport with stall workers. “We don’t want the market to be empty aside from us”, says Gruter. The idea is the get more market products to more people; as an alternative to using the supermarket.
“We’re beginning in Groningen because I know the ‘market master’ quite well, and it’s also a big market.” Aside from Groningen, both Gruter and Coopman have plans to expand from Groningen across the Netherlands. Around “90 percent” of market stalls want to take part, says Gruter.
In the first instance, on market days, three time slots for delivery will be opened: from 11:00 to 13:00, from 14:00 to 16:00, and from 17:00 to 19:00. “I think that it will go really quickly”, says Gruter, “and if that’s the case then we can develop an app and hire more delivery people!”
