20th century: Parkinson Family ownership Peapod Online Grocer (US) was founded in 1989 by Andrew Parkinson and Thomas Parkinson. Before 1996, Peapod Online Grocer (US) provided an online grocery shopping service in a partnership with
Jewel supermarket in
Chicago, Illinois, That year the company held an
IPO on
NASDAQ. Between 1997 and 2000, Peapod expanded into
Boston and
Watertown, Massachusetts,
Long Island, New York, and
Norwalk, Connecticut, in partnership with
Stop & Shop.
21st century: Ahold then Ahold Delhaize In June 2000, global grocery corporation
Royal Ahold bought 51% of Peapod's
shares, This caused Peapod to abandon Columbus, Houston, and San Francisco entirely. In late 2000, Peapod added Washington, D.C., and surrounding towns through
Giant of Landover, and in 2011 they also started serving the
Philadelphia market with
Giant of Carlisle and
Manhattan with
Stop & Shop. f In February 2012, Peapod introduced signs at some
SEPTA Regional Rail stations in
Philadelphia which enabled
smartphone users to shop for groceries using Peapod's
mobile app on their phone and scanning the
barcodes of items listed on the signs. The grocery delivery occurred later in the day. In 2019, Peapod held 9% of the online grocery delivery market in New York City, behind
FreshDirect (68%),
Instacart (13%), and
Amazon Fresh (9%). In February 2020, Peapod announced they would be ceasing operations in the Midwest (
Illinois,
Indiana, and
Wisconsin) and focus exclusively on serving the East Coast. The headquarters for Peapod Digital Labs, which runs the e-commerce technology for Ahold Delhaize's US grocery brands, remained in downtown Chicago. ==Recognition and awards==