Grocery delivery options for seniors sheltering in place

Dear Savvy Senior: Can you recommend some good grocery and/or meal service delivery options for older people? My 78-year-old mother has always shopped for herself, but she’d rather not during the pandemic. — Parent Helper

Dear Helper: Many grocery services offer memberships (fees around $100 per year), which will get you or your mom free deliveries on orders over $30 or $35. Or, they’ll charge a flat delivery fee, typically $10 or less. Instacart (instacart.com) and

Shipt (shipt.com) work with a wide variety of grocery retailers, including national and local chains and are widely available throughout the U.S.

They use independent-contractor shopper/ drivers to pick up orders in stores and deliver them. Also check Walmart’s online grocery delivery or pickup service (grocery. walmart.com) and Amazon Prime Now (primenow. amazon.com).

If your mom still enjoys cooking, a option is meal kit delivery services such as Home Chef (homechef. com), Sun Basket (sunbasket.com) or Hellofresh (hellofresh.com). Meal kits are subscription-based services that send boxes of fresh, preportioned ingredients for that kit’s recipe.

She may need to chop or slice before combining and cooking meals. Costs run from $8 to $12 per meal.

An alternative is to set your mom up with a readymade meal delivery service such as Mom’s Meals (momsmeals.com) or Silver Cuisine (silvercuisine.com). Both companies, which cater to older adults, offer a variety of healthy, fully prepared choices (just heat and eat) that accommodate, for example, dietary needs of those managing diabetes or needing heart-friendly and/or lower-sodium meal options.

Mom’s Meals, which run $7 per meal plus delivery, arrive fresh and will last up to 14 days in the refrigerator. Silver Cuisine meals are delivered frozen and cost up to $13 each.

Keep in mind that, because of demand, many grocery and meal delivery services are overwhelmed right now, so some services may be greatly delayed or temporarily unavailable.

Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit Savvysenior.org.