FreshDirect is rudderless and bleeding cash, with its Turkey-based parent company waging its own battle for survival — putting the future of the leading online grocer in jeopardy, The Post has learned.
The Bronx-based company, which has woven its colorful trucks through New York City traffic for more than two decades, has been scrambling to name a new CEO since November after the previous two resigned within months of each other — leaving a leadership vacuum and creating a “ “There is a lot of uncertainty for FreshDirect,” according to a source familiar with the situation.
FreshDirect — which quietly imposed a 50-cent congestion pricing fee on all deliveries below 60th Street in Manhattan to help offset the cost of recently installed tolls, as The Post exclusively reported — is losing at least several million dollars a month for about $600. Multiple sources said $1 million in annual sales.
Today, “the clock is ticking for FreshDirect,” said one former investor in the company.
It has an estimated 50,000 customers in Manhattan, according to industry consultant Bert Flickinger, and delivers in the five boroughs and other wealthier parts of the metropolitan area.
FreshDirect recently reached out to industry experts to help with the company's transformation efforts, according to an executive familiar with the situation.
FreshDirect was already in dire financial straits when its Dutch owner Ahold Delhaize USA, the parent company of Stop & Shop, sold the company to Istanbul-based Getir in 2023.
The express grocery delivery service, a pandemic darling once valued at $10 billion, had high hopes for the Big Apple icon.
Co-founded by Nazem Salor in 2015, the startup appointed Sloan Eddleston, a former e-commerce executive at Walmart, as CEO of FreshDirect and promoted a rising star — Hatice Evren — to lead Getir's U.S. operations and oversee FreshDirect a year ago.
But things unfolded quickly. Edleston resigned last May, and Evren followed him out about six months later.
Evren did not respond and Edleston declined to comment.
Eddleston, whose LinkedIn profile still indicates he is FreshDirect's CEO, had concerns that the company was running out of money and that Getir didn't have the means to invest in the company, a source familiar with the situation told The Post.
Efren said her tenure — which included a stint as Salor's chief of staff — has been a “rollercoaster” ride.
On LinkedIn, the Istanbul resident described her decision as closing “an important chapter in my life – marked by a transformative five-year journey with Getir and an amazing year with FreshDirect.”
Meanwhile, the city of Jeter faces its own crisis. In June, it pulled out of six European countries and all of its US operations except FreshDirect in order to obtain $250 million in financing from Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Company.
But last week, Salor claimed in a post on X that the UAE fund was plotting an “illegal coup” to force him out of the company.
“At the end of the day, Getir is underwater and so is FreshDirect,” a former top FreshDirect executive told The Post.
Getir and FreshDirect did not return repeated calls and emails from The Post.
Although FreshDirect is beloved by thousands of New Yorkers, some of whom have been customers since its inception 26 years ago, it's no longer a new concept.
It faces increasing competition from other delivery services, including Doordash, Instacart and Amazon.
A costly relocation in 2018 from Long Island City, where it started, to a massive facility in the Bronx, contributed to its financial woes.
A year later, the company was unable to find any participants when it went up for sale.
Ahold Delhaize USA finally made a bid in 2021 as FreshDirect could barely keep up with all the new business fueled by the pandemic.
But when demand slumped after lockdown shoppers were free to roam supermarket aisles again, Ahold was desperate to offload FreshDirect.
Under Ahold's leadership, FreshDirect has withdrawn from the Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia markets as well as some communities in Virginia and Maryland to focus solely on the New York metro area.
Ultimately, the Dutch group had to pay Getir to take it off its balance sheet, as The Post exclusively reported.
The terms of the Getir acquisition were never disclosed, but according to industry consultant Brittain Ladd, Ahold paid Getir $151 million and invested another $30 million in the Turkish company.
According to Ahold's Q4 2023 earnings results, it lost about $270 million due to the divestment of FreshDirect.
Under Ahold's leadership, FreshDirect has withdrawn from the Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia markets as well as some communities in Virginia and Maryland to focus solely on the New York metro area.
The company said at the time that it would focus on its core New York metro market.
