NEW CITY — Employees at Door to Door Organics filed into their new nondescript warehouse on Pershing Road, arriving by bike and dressed in blue jeans.
Disco music pumped through a big speaker as order pickers sorted through bins of greens, bananas and potatoes. In the front offices, workers hopped online, sipped coffee and dispatched delivery drivers.
"I can't tell you how many times we've joked around and said, 'It's like a real company,'" said Carlos Collier, the company's director for its Great Lakes region.
Over the summer, the grocery delivery company moved its Chicago operation from a cramped West Side warehouse to a 25,000-square-foot distribution facility at 815 W. Pershing Road, key because of its proximity to the Dan Ryan and Stevenson expressways.
Casey Cora says the company is trying to get a piece of the online shopping business:
Complete with a custom-built freezer and refrigerator, it's the largest distribution facility in the 17-year-old company's network, which includes warehouses in five states, including its headquarters in Colorado.
In addition to offering a wide range of organic produce and natural products, the company prioritizes relationships with local farms and ranches to supply high-quality meat from places like Q7 Ranch and This Old Farm and Deer Creek Organics.
All of it can be bundled with premade produce boxes, ordered online and delivered weekly to customers within a 50-mile radius of the warehouse, a range that stretches from the Wisconsin state line to beyond Joliet.
Collier, an MBA clad in a black T-shirt and ripped jeans, said the company is finding an identity that straddles the line between a bunch of laid-back, good-natured foodies and a pioneering capitalistic enterprise.
"We're a couple years removed from being just a cute little organic fruit and vegetable company to a full-service online grocer," he said.
Door to Door Organics, he said, is trying to muscle its way into the growing delivery market against household names like Peapod, Irv and Shelly's Fresh Picks and Instacart, which touts grocery delivery within an hour from stores like Whole Foods and Mariano's.
Eventually, Amazon and other tech companies are expected to enter the market, too, experts say.
Although Door to Door Organics offers delivery once a week, same-day delivery is "a future we're planning for," he said.
"There's a lot of companies doing what we do but not a lot of companies doing it profitably," Collier said.
Industry observers say online delivery represents just a small chunk, 3.3 percent, of the $500 billion U.S. food and beverage spending annually.
But it's poised to grow — to upward of 17 percent of the market by 2023 — as customers gain more abundant access to delivery services and discover their convenience.
"It's clear that online grocery shopping is outpacing the most conservative scenario and growing faster than expected," wrote Steve Bishop, author of a first-of-its-kind study on the industry for market research firm Brick Meets Click.
Which is precisely where Collier and others sees Door to Door Organics — as a tech company but also a logistics company trying to perfect the science of getting wholesome food to Midwestern families, and to do it profitably.
But that's the corporate talk.
"We try very, very hard to keep the soul of our company. ... It's all set up for us to put food on people's tables," he said.
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