Saturday, September 5, 2015

Mathem.se

Annika told us about a grocery delivery service called Mathem (which translates literally as "food home".)

Like any big-city shopping delivery service, one can select pretty much anything sold in a grocery store and have it delivered to the door.

The cool thing about this service is that they deliver to the archipelago as well. Aspö is within the daily delivery area.  (That cute little photo is from their website.)

In theory, Sooz could shop by clicking online, and her goods would be delivered the next day to the taxi boat dock by our house. I say "in theory," because we were all set to give it a try, only to see a banner page saying their delivery boat was unexpectedly out of service! It was not going to be back operating until after we left, so we weren't able to test the service. (We have since heard that deliveries are back on track, and are working well for Aspö residents.)

Guns Livs will still deliver on the Waxholms boat. We successfully did that over 5 years ago. (I even found a picture of that delivery!) And of course, with our own boat, we can pop over to Nämdö whenever the weather is decent. One difference is that Guns has a limited selection of goods. Mathem  have a much wider range available.

The local Skärgården newspaper had a long article recently about Mathem's first summer. The idea originated last year from a group of islanders who approached delivery companies with the plan to deliver in the archipelago. Mathem, who already deliver in Stockholm, took on the idea. Service started in mid-June and was a huge success. In fact, a bit too much of a success; there weren't nearly enough boats to fulfill demand. The good news is that Mathem already plans to add more delivery boats and have a more robust service next year.

It is great to have a delivery option. I was getting tired of carrying heavy groceries on the bus, boat, and wheelbarrow. Having stuff delivered is a nice break, and it will make it a lot easier for us to go straight to Aspö from the airport without having to arrange an enroute shopping trip as well.

No comments: