Peapod took its first online grocery orders in 1990, in a suburban Chicago test market served by a single warehouse. By its June 1997 IPO, members could browse virtual aisles of more than 20,000 grocery, drug and household items, shop from saved lists, clip electronic coupons and get orders delivered from partner supermarkets. The Evanston, Illinois company called itself the leading online grocery shopping and delivery company. It had never turned a profit.

Two Brothers and a Test Market

Andrew and Thomas Parkinson ran Peapod, which began in 1989 and operated as an Illinois partnership from 1992. The model served three customers at once. Shoppers got home delivery. Grocery chains got a new sales channel without building one themselves. Consumer goods companies got targeted ads, promotions and research drawn from members' buying habits. After the IPO, the Parkinsons and an affiliated company would still own about 19.8 percent of the stock.

Ahold Takes the Basket

Peapod priced its IPO at $16 a share in June 1997 and listed on Nasdaq as PPOD. It sold 4 million shares. Picking, packing and delivering groceries proved expensive, and the losses kept growing. Dutch grocer Royal Ahold invested and gained control of the company. In 2001 Ahold bought out the remaining public shareholders at $2.15 a share in cash, and Peapod became an Ahold subsidiary that August.

Cover: Vegetable Sheet, Carl Wilhelm Kolbe, the elder. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for garden vegetables (peas in the pod).