生鲜电商大战背后看不见的硝烟

    在另一边海岸上旧金山的初创公司Gold Eggs内，类似的高科技与食品快递之间也擦出了火花。那里的工程师花费了超过18个月的时间来设计后台软件，管理旧金山、布鲁克林、洛杉矶和新奥尔良的400家当地生产商制造的食品的递送。从面包、鸡蛋到酸奶、牛排，一应俱全。

    Good Eggs并没有采用批发食品，把它们存在仓库，然后希望产品能够卖出去的方式，而是采用即时生产的清单模式。当地的面包师只烘烤当日订单中要求的面包量，渔场也只捕捉确定要购买的那些鱼。这家公司获得了投资者1,300万美元的赞助。他们为当地的食品制造商如Prather Ranch Meat Co.设计了专门的网站。

    每周二，Prather Ranch的董事长道格•斯通布雷克都会收到来自公司在加利福尼亚北部的牧场的新鲜猪肉和牛肉。在Good Eggs网站上，他可以更新和管理存货清单，上传产品图片，设定价格，观察产品趋势数据，比如什么商品卖得最好。

    Good Eggs的内部软件会在每天下午分析当日订单，确定次日的员工配置、快递路线和产品需求。软件会给斯通布雷克这样的制造商发送自动生成的电子邮件，通知他们顾客需要多少肉制品。

    次日上午，斯通布雷克和其他食物生产商会打包这些商品，把它们送到Good Eggs旧金山市中心的食品中转站。在那里，许多Good Eggs的员工会手持平板电脑核对货物，分门别类地把它们装进不同的温控储藏区。

    平板电脑的应用会在四个小时之内将订单转化为快递，而员工们会用纸袋和保温桶为顾客包装食物。之后，这些员工会跳进自己的汽车，利用智能手机上的GPS导航软件送货。抵达目的地之前，顾客会收到短信提示。

    顾客在网上按下“购买”按钮的36小时内就能收到食物包裹。加利福尼亚州索萨利托的退休抵押经纪人朱迪•夏柏就是顾客之一。尽管夏柏对快递费用感到懊丧——有时高达8美元，因为她家周围的顾客较少——但她仍是这项快递服务的狂热粉丝，因为她没办法经常去逛农贸市场。

    她说出了每位食品快递服务经理都渴望听到的话：“我收到的菠菜是这辈子见过的最棒的。太新鲜了。”（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    On the other coast, a similar high-tech twist on food delivery is playing out at the San Francisco startup Good Eggs. Engineers there spent more than 18 months developing the back-end software to manage the deliveries of everything from local bread and eggs to yogurt and steaks from 400 local producers in San Francisco, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and New Orleans.

    Rather than buying food wholesale, stocking a warehouse, and hoping product will sell, Good Eggs uses just-in-time inventory, where local bakers only bake the amount of bread ordered that day or fisheries only pull the number of fish purchased. The company, backed by $13 million from investors, designed a separate website for local food producers like the Prather Ranch Meat Co.

    Each Tuesday, Prather Ranch chief executive Doug Stonebreaker receives new cuts of pork and beef from the company's northern California ranch. On his Good Eggs website, he updates and manages inventory, uploads product photos, sets prices, and views product trend data, like what's selling best.

    Each afternoon, internal software at Good Eggs analyzes the day's orders to determine next-day staffing, delivery routes, and product needed. It sends an automated e-mail to producers like Stonebreaker, telling him which cuts of meat customers ordered.

    The next morning, Stonebreaker and other food providers pack up their pre-sold goods and drive to Good Eggs' downtown San Francisco food hub. There, a dozen Good Eggs workers wait with tablet computers in hand to check in and sort food in various temperature-controlled storage areas.

    Tablet applications help organize orders into waves of deliveries that go out in four-hour windows, as workers pack food in paper bags and cold sleeves for each customer. Those same employees then jump in their personal vehicles and use GPS routing software on their smartphones to make drop-offs. Before an order arrives, a customer receives a text message alert.

    Within 36 hours of clicking the "buy" button online, customers like Judy Shaper, a retired mortgage broker in Sausalito, Calif., receive a bag of food. Although Shaper is frustrated by the delivery fee -- which at times has hit $8, because there are not yet enough customers in her neighborhood -- she is a big fan of the delivery service since she can't always get to the farmer's market.

    "The spinach I've gotten is the best I've had in my life," she says, uttering the words that every food delivery service executive is dying to hear. "It's so fresh."