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How much are you willing to pay for a little taste of home?
For most troops, commissary prices are more or less in line with those of stateside grocers.
But for those sitting at some combat outpost in the middle of Afghanistan, getting that taste of home might be next to impossible.
Enter John Ruppert, who started the online grocery storemilitaryfoodex.com in March 2009.
Ruppert’s Web site is tailored exclusively to the thousands of Americans — U.S. troops and State Department employees — stationed at U.S. embassies or at tiny facilities around the globe. He ships only to APO and FPO addresses.
The site lists thousands of products available for purchase — many which aren’t sold by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service or the Defense Commissary Agency.
But, Ruppert admits, his prices are considerably higher than those at most on-post facilities. In fact, a quick scan of items revealed that Military Food Express can charge nearly twice as much as the commissary. For instance, a jar of Jif Creamy Peanut Butter costs $1.99 at the commissary. Military Food Express charges $3.32. A can of Old El Paso Refried Beans is 85 cents at the commissary, and is $1.68 through Ruppert’s Web site.
And that doesn’t factor in shipping. Ruppert said he believes his shipping costs are cheaper than other competitors’ costs and said his prices are competitive against operations that are on the same scale.
"We base it off other online shopping services," he said. "Not services like Amazon.com. But other services that offer services similar to ours. And we try to beat their prices."
There are dozens of Web sites that offer to ship items such as cereal or shampoo to APO and FPO addresses, but few offer the variety of products that Ruppert does. And those sites that do provide the variety often require customers to purchase in bulk. But not Ruppert.
For instance, one competitor offers Kool-Aid mix, but customers have to buy a case, which is 48 packs of the powdered drink mix. But, Ruppert allows customers to buy a box with 10 packs .
In a telephone interview from his home in Maine, Ruppert said that customers can even request items that aren’t on the list. The company’s employees — he and his wife, Becky — will get the items if they are commercially available in Maine.
There are some notable exceptions.
"Nothing frozen, nothing perishable," Ruppert said. Nothing sold in a glass container, either. And nothing that’s illegal in the country where the customer lives.
That leaves mostly processed foods and personal hygiene items. Ruppert said the couple processes about 50 orders a week, with 80 percent of his customers ordering from Afghanistan and Iraq.