Xmas Tree Company Shifts to Bulk Grocery Delivery
Balsam Hill, a Redwood City, Calif.-based retailer of realistic artificial Christmas trees and all-season home décor items, has launched Balsam Provisions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new service enables consumers to shop directly for bulk quantities of nonperishable food and household supplies.
The company created Balsam Provisions by repurposing its existing e-commerce infrastructure at warehouses, joining forces with restaurant suppliers, and leveraging its strong relationship with FedEx. Any profits from Balsam Provisions sales will go to food banks such as Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
Among Balsam Provisions’ offerings are 7-pound cans of baked beans, two packs of 50-ounce cans of chicken noodle soup, 12-packs of paper towels, 25-pound bags of all-purpose white flour, 10-pound bags of various pastas and 60-roll packs of toilet paper. Item pricing includes product cost and FedEx shipping and handling charges to the contiguous 48 states.
“Shopping at Balsam Provisions puts food that was supposed to go to now-closed restaurants to good use while taking the pressure off strained grocery stores,” explained Balsam Hill CEO Mac Harman. “It’s also another option to get food into the homes of people who, due to age or health conditions, should not go out.”
As the holiday season is Balsam Hill’s busiest time of year, the company has extra capacity in spring and summer, enabling it to temporarily repurpose its existing warehouses and delivery infrastructure to deliver household staples directly to customers.
Balsam Provisions is just one more creative e-commerce solutions introduced amid the coronavirus outbreak. Others getting in on grocery delivery have included eateries Panera and Subway, restaurant/foodservice wholesaler Baldor Specialty Foods, and drug store chain Walgreens, while business-to-business tech company Frayt has teamed with Kroger Marketplace locations to bring home furnishings to consumers.
