Drive-thru, Contactless Grocery Shopping Comes to Vancouver

Vancouverites can now go grocery shopping right from the comfort of their vehicles.

Fed, a meal delivery service that provides fresh, dietitian-designed dishes, recently expanded their grocery delivery service by opening G3 by Fed , the city’s first drive-thru grocery store. So what can you get at the drive-thru? A pretty good selection of traditional groceries from local vendors—think Yoggu, Avalon Dairy, Mumgry, Nelson the Seagull, Agro Coffee Roasters, Zimt, Oddity Kombucha and Two Rivers Meats—as well as household essentials like toilet paper and dish soap, protective gear like KN95 masks and Nitrile gloves (because Covid), and nutritious ready-to-ear meals.

“During Covid-19, I became increasingly frustrated with grocery shopping,” says Saba Marzara, Co-Founder and CEO of Fed. “Long lineups, product availability issues, and the risk of exposure to the virus pushed me to order groceries online.” Even then, she says, she encountered a lack of delivery time slots and inaccurate arrival times that made the entire process even more frustrating.

Drive-through customers can peruse a list of grocery items via a QR code and instantly place an order, all the while supporting local brands. “As a food producer, we have ready access to fresh ingredients and the artisan products that our customers are craving, so it only makes sense to offer them what they are searching for in a convenient and safe manner,” says Saba.

That’s why she set out to provide a drive-through service as an alternative to the delivery model, where customers don’t have to book a time slot, make their purchasing decisions weeks in advance, and reschedule their entire day to be home in time for a delivery. “Instead, our customers can safely shop for groceries in their own vehicle and on their own schedule.”

Sounds so smart and simple that we wonder why no one thought of it before.

On a recent day we stopped by G3 by Fed on our way to the beach. All we needed was something easy to eat on the sand while we worked on our tans. The experience was completely seamless. We pulled up right next to the shipping container, pulled up the menu on our phone and ordered a quinoa kale bowl with lentil fritters, a couple of vegan brownies, some blueberries and a kombucha. We paid right through our phone and inched our car to the back of the shipping container, where a little door swung open with our grocery bag ready to grab and go. And off we went.

We’re sure we’ll be back, too!

G3 by Fed is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm at 845 Terminal Avenue, Vancouver.