FRESH FOOD HOME DELIVERY AND "SHELF CONDOS" FOR THE STORE 

"They're tossing green tennis balls into that mailbox?"

"Get with it. That's the latest in miniature lettuce and they're putting it into a new refrigerated mailbox, Silly."

Home grocery delivery is already a standard feature in most large cities and, with time at the cutting edge so short, more and more harried but well-paid workers are willing to pay for such services. Now that orders can be faxed from the office during coffee break, why not be the first on the block to have a 21st century ice-box resembling a large rural mailbox in the driveway. The food is there when you want it, you're not waiting until it arrives. It's similar to a VCR, in that you, not some faceless network programmer, set the schedule. Food is kept at the right temperature, with no puddle of melted ice cream reminiscent of the time you stopped to pick up the dry cleaning after buying ice cream and got trapped in a traffic jam.

Such outdoor refrigerators would close and lock after being loaded by the grocery delivery person. Coded cards would open same when the working couple arrive home ready to relax knowing they don't have to go out and tangle with traffic again.

Some working couples waste as much food as they eat. Frequent delivery of smaller quantities takes away the guilt of wasting food even though it does nothing for the cost factor. Convenience compensates for increased cost on many occasions.

This concept could result in a change in food retailing as great as that introduced by the 24-hour convenience store.

And that miniature lettuce isn't fiction either. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture realize that smaller units of food will be in demand by smaller families, so they have created tiny lettuce that should be on the market by 1993. It will be as tasty and as crisp as today's full-size lettuce and, with delivery to your driveway fridge, it won't get a chance to go limp in the sun. Such small lettuce will fill a niche both at home for small families who can't eat a whole head of lettuce at one meal while it's still fresh and for restaurants that get calls for single service salads.

A loving spouse might even have your favorite drink, complete with ice cubes, waiting for you in the driveway fridge when you step out of the car. Now wouldn't you like that?

We have mentioned before the in-car microwave being developed by Ford and Cambell Soup Company. The food product will be a "Heat 'N Eat" package of eggs and bacon or waffles, etc., that you just throw into the microwave while enroute, and then pull over (hopefully) by the side of the road to eat. More is yet to come. According to the Howard Marlboro Group in New York, food marketing will follow new directions in the 21st century. They point out that with the many switched ownerships of food chains in the U.S. during the 1980s, quite a few new owners treated such investments for their real estate value. Now they are finding out they don't know enough about operating service-oriented retail outlets. Net result: food marketing is moving towards "a point where the products of just a dozen or so huge corporations will account for 75 to 89 percent of all sales in chain supermarkets and drug stores." And, like major league baseball franchises, food producers will continue to battle with the new, indoor major real estate players (chain supermarkets) to acquire, hopefully, permanent "shelf condos" for their products. The Marlboro Group think that for a time, "real estate people could control one-third of the U.S. supermarkets." They see that as leading to political action limiting any chain to no more than 15 percent of national sales in any retail segment.

Merger mania which exploded in the 1980s isn't working in another fashion. Though some economies in some companies were achieved by merging similar operations, the very high-interest rates payable on junk bonds used to finance such mergers call for 14 and 16 percent interest rates and that is making the food in those stores more expensive.

We have all heard the "reach out and touch someone" ads of the phone companies. Before the turn of the century you will see the "reach out and touch that food product" version of artificial or "virtual reality" move into the home. Picture this: You are out of food. It's raining, cold, the streets are slippery and your car has been acting up. What to do? Turn on the TV, dial in your favorite supermarket and take a video stroll down the aisle (with music to shop by). Naturally, you first put on a VR glove (already available from Mattel Toys), reach through your TV screen to that shelf you've been watching for that new jar of genetically-adjusted 'jungle health beans" from Costa Rica, that are the latest rage. Naturally you can turn the jar around first to read the healthaffecting contents shown on the label. Shopping in this manner, according to the Marlborough Group, gives you "an electronic shopping cart" that you don't even have to push. It automatically records items purchased and cost. To return anything, before you reach the checkout counter, hit the cancel button on the screen, and that item will disappear from the cart and the tape.

Sorry, electronic taste and smell stimulators won't appear for a few more years, until new style sensors are able to activate individuals. But they are coming.

More information: Bob Windt, The Howard Marlboro Group, 475 Tenth Ave., New York, NY 10018-1198. Phone: 212/736-2300. Fax: 212/564-3395. Glenn Bozarth, VP, Mattell Toys, 515 Rosencrans Ave., Hawthorne, CA 90250. Phone: 213/524-2000.

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