Fresh Direct sees fresh sales ahead in corporate New York

Fresh off a two-year run when the company grew its online grocer base to 1 million households, Fresh Direct is expanding.

Fresh Direct, an online web grocer serving the New York City area, will soon start offering catering, corporate office delivery and some national shipments of its more than 8,000 SKUs, says John Boris, the company’s marketing vice president.

The new services will be web-based and will expand Fresh Direct’s marketing base in metropolitan New York, a $24 billion food services market.

The new corporate program will first target catering events and large offices in east Manhattan, Boris says.

“We spent our first several years perfecting the business model which is based on supplying very fresh items at very competitive rates,” Boris says. “Now we are expanding.”

Fresh Direct, which operates out of a 300,000-square-foot distribution center in Long Island City, NY, has annual sales of $125 million and about 1,000 employees. It ranks No. 55 on Internet Retailer’s Top 300 guide to online retailers.