RICHMOND, Va. — Commissary officials are getting close to awarding a contract for the doorstep delivery of groceries, said John Hall, director of the Defense Commissary Agency.
“We need this. Our customers want and need this contract,” Hall said during a meeting of the American Logistics Association in Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday. “I’m really excited about this.”
Hall did not provide a specific timeline for the broader rollout of the service, which is currently limited to select pilot locations.
“There are some hurdles left,” he said. “We’re going to work really hard to get over it.”
According to the contract solicitation documents, delivery service would be available to eligible customers living within a 20-mile radius of commissaries in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The solicitation requires the service to start initially at 70 locations, but gives the Defense Commissary Agency the ability to add any of the remaining 108 commissaries at any time.
Commissary officials aren’t considering doorstep delivery for overseas commissaries, due to overseas regulatory constraints.
There are about 3.4 million eligible households living within a 20-mile radius of those 178 commissaries, which sell discounted groceries as a benefit to active duty, Guard and Reserve members, military retirees, Medal of Honor recipients and their authorized family members. Veterans with any Department of Veterans Affairs-documented, service-connected disability rating also have commissary privileges.
Officials launched a pilot program in 2022 for deliveries at eight commissaries, including Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; Fort Bragg South, North Carolina; MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; Fort Belvoir and Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Naval Base San Diego in California.
Delivery costs has been an issue in the service rollout. Officials are trying to keep delivery costs for customers as low as possible, Hall said.
“We want it comparable to what they would pay at a local grocery chain [for delivery],” he said.
When the pilot first launched in 2022, most delivery fees hovered around $4 per order. Customers pay the fee in addition to the cost of groceries, the 5% commissary surcharge, and, if desired, a tip for the driver. But those low delivery fees made it financially difficult for the two companies handling the deliveries to cover operating costs like gas prices and drivers’ salaries.
One of the companies, ChowCall, took over all the deliveries at the eight commissaries in March 2023, and was allowed to set prices to cover its costs. The cost depends on the miles driven, ranging from about $16 to about $30. ChowCall has delivered more than 28,000 commissary orders from the eight pilot locations, according to Todd Waldemar, founder and CEO of ChowCall.
Information is not yet available about whether the delivery fee will be subsidized in some way by the commissary system under the new contract.
Customers using the delivery service at the eight pilot stores buy nearly three times as much per order as customers shopping in person at commissaries, according to Hall. The average shopping basket is about $185 for customers using the delivery service, compared to the average basket of about $65 per trip for those shopping inside the stores. For those using the curbside pickup service available at all commissaries, the average order is about $120, according to Hall.
“Think about how much more benefit we can deliver to our customers, how much more we can combat food insecurity when we get this delivery contract in place,” Hall said.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book “A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families.” She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
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