Tom Thumb had a delivery service during the late '90s called GroceryWorks, but it died in the dot-com bust.

And then there was Webvan that IPO'ed in Nov, 1999 with a market cap north of $4.8 billion. RIP: 2001.

Kozmo.com was another amazing one back in 2000. We would order movies and food and have them delivered in < 1 hour.

One of the delivery guys even walked through our (open) door, dropped the food on the coffee table and put the VHS tape in for us.

Sadly, those economics didn't work out.

OK look at the size of the UK and the US and you'll get closer to your answer why this hasn't been a major development in the US.

Yeah, but there's no requirement for services to be national or to cover areas outside cities with insufficient density. I suspect it has more to do with large US supermarkets with large parking lots and high auto ownership.

[ADDED: For example, Peapod is only available in some areas of the Northeast and Midwest]

Well since there's no-requirement for it to be national then, I'd point out that in the D.C. area there are 2 major chains that delivery groceries, and 3 others that allow online ordering and pickup at select stores.

It's been done for at least 5 years.