Village Profile® Home Page | About our Company | Sales Opportunities | Community eStore | vpmobile.us®

Internet Revolution

For many, iTunes revolutionized the way that people bought music. Similarly, Amazon managed to reinvent the way people purchased books, CDs and a wide assortment of other goods. Few might have expected grocery shopping to have an Internet-based source so readily available even now, but Peapod, originating in Evanston and now with its major Midwestern warehouse in the Lake Zurich Corporate Park, has revolutionized even the way people get the things they eat.

Currently employing around 1,800 people nationwide, Peapod more humbly began as the venture of brothers Andrew and Thomas Parkinson. Andrew worked as a brand manager for Procter and Gamble and Kraft while Thomas had founded his own software company. In 1989, the two began to recognize a need in the community to help busy families through a grocery delivery service, and in 1990, Peapod made its first delivery to customers in Evanston. Unique for its time, Peapod always accepted orders online through faxes and modems, even at Peapod’s inception, nearly half a decade before Internet usage really became the ubiquitous fixture it currently remains.

In the early days of Peapod, the company partnered with others like Jewel, Kroger, Safeway and Randall’s to obtain the groceries it could then deliver to a wide variety of markets across the nation. A business begun by two brothers grew to a national force changing the way people went grocery shopping. Accordingly, Peapod as a brand needed to grow on its own, and before long, Peapod also needed a new place to call its home.

At the turn of the new millennium, major changes abounded for Peapod. Netherlands-based Royal Ahold bought out Peapod’s shares and provided the company with tremendous buying power as well as built-in access to chains already operating under Royal Ahold such as Stop and Shop and Giant Foods. In addition, Peapod made a major transition that made it such a major player in Lake Zurich—in 2001, seeking out a larger facility in an area conducive to even more growth, Peapod moved into a 75,000-square-foot facility in Lake Zurich.

The move into the climate-controlled facility in Lake Zurich indicated a major commitment to the town, as even now it is one of only two warehouses Peapod maintains in the country. Of course, maintaining the facility meant more job opportunities and general collaboration with Lake Zurich. But the location also presented the chance to try out a new way to help busy families eat better and healthier.

Working along with a local Chamber, Peapod began to distribute prepared meals through a catering line known as Peppercorn’s. Residents of Lake Zurich sampled the prepared food, either food requiring some baking time or just a short heating up, and it soon became quite successful. In fact, the idea worked so well that Peapod soon branched out the idea to locations all across the country. Hence the nearly 13 million households currently served by Peapod have the opportunity to try a service first conceived and proven in Lake Zurich.

Even now, few would likely make a connection between Lake Zurich and the Netherlands, but through the vast Peapod facility and its connections to Royal Ahold, Lake Zurich has a strong presence in an international corporation. Maybe even more importantly, Peapod and Lake Zurich have combined forces to help change the way busy families obtain their food, making it an easier process and showing not all Internet revolutions have to begin in Silicon Valley. As Peapod continues to grow along with Lake Zurich, there may be no telling what ideas will come from it, but from what has come so far, the world may as well prepare for the best.