On Friday, April 17 the new online retail store Retail Relay will be celebrating it’s relationship with Martha Jefferson Hospital. Basically, they’ve built a special online grocery store, with the help of online local food site Virginia Bounty, for MJH employees, who’ll be able to pick up their goodies on Friday afternoons outside the building after ordering online. They’ll even carry your groceries to your car, and it doesn’t cost anymore than it would if you went to the store yourself. Their service is available for the rest of us, too, on Retail Relay’s main site, with pick available at the MJH location or on Route 250 near the Boar’s Head Inn. 

Now folks can get their online purchases from 14 local stores delivered right to where they work on Fridays,” says marketing director Ted Corcoran. “The idea is to get grocery shopping done during the week and have more time on the weekend.”

The stores and farms around town include Reid’s, Rebecca’s Natural Food, Fisherville Farm, The Cheese Shop, and Hotcakes to name a few. MJH employees will also be able to get some stuff from Trader Joe’s, even though the closest one is about 50 miles away.

At the Friday event, which will be held from 3pm to 7pm outside MJH, foods from the various stores and farms will be featured and Retail Relay/Virginia Bounty folks will be able to ask questions about the service.

So will the new way to shop catch on? Companies like Netgrocer.com and Peapod.com already deliver food right to your door (though Peapod is not now available in our area), and in the UK, where home deliver sales have risen 20 percent over the last few years, a price war has broken out as a company called Waitrose is now offering free delivery. Closer to home, the Hollymead Town Center Harris Teeter offers an express pick-up service. Order online, they do the shopping for you, and when you drive up they load your groceries in the car, all for $4.95. A website called Locally Grown Nelson (www.nelson.locallygrown.net) is another option, where folks can order locally grown produce online and pick it up on Wednesday’s at the Rockfish Valley Community Center from 3:30pm to 6:30pm.