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To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (32734)	1/5/1999 9:43:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Greatfood.com Annual Sales and Traffic Skyrocket for Web's Leading Specialty Food Store SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 5, 1999--GreatFood.com (http://www.greatfood.com), the ultimate specialty food store for quality, selection and convenience, has seen 1998 annual sales grow to more than 600 percent of last year's sales, the company announced today. Additionally, during the same period, traffic to the GreatFood.com Web site, measured in unique visits, increased to 381 percent of 1997 levels. Based upon preliminary, unaudited results for the 1998 calendar year, sales increased to $763,838 from $125,892 in 1997. Orders increased to 13,542 from 2,231 in 1997. Unique visits to the GreatFood.com Web site increased to 1,195,574 from 313,601 in 1997. "With e-commerce in general growing at an estimated three hundred percent over last year, we're delighted to have grown at more than double that rate," said Ben Nourse, chairman and founder of GreatFood.com. "We're now beginning to see the fruits of our efforts which began last summer when we explicitly defined ourselves as 'the ultimate specialty food store' and began developing a variety of programs to take advantage of the emergence of specialty food as a major online market opportunity." To broaden its market position, GreatFood.com expanded its product inventory, enhanced its Web site, formed numerous marketing and promotional partnerships and developed a new wholesale program. During the year, GreatFood.com more than doubled its specialty food product inventory to more than 1,400 items and has increased from 20 suppliers to more than 60. The company also upgraded its Web site, changing the logo, adding features and improving navigation. The company launched several important strategic partnership initiatives in 1998, particularly with America Online (AOL), Excite and Yahoo! Through the AOL agreement, GreatFood.com is featured in the Gourmet and Grocery area of the Shopping Channel on the AOL service, as well as on AOL.com and CompuServe. Through the Excite partnership, GreatFood.com is featured in the Gourmet and Groceries department of the Shopping channel on Excite (http://www.excite.com), and a similar shopping area on the Excite-programmed portion of the Netscape Netcenter (http://www.netscape.com) site. In teaming up with Yahoo!, GreatFood.com appears in a wide variety of food and gift-oriented areas of the Yahoo! Site. In addition to working with some of the nation's most recognized Internet portal sites, GreatFood.com entered into a co-marketing partnership with Peapod Inc. (Nasdaq:PPOD), the Web's leading online grocer. GreatFood.com's specialty food product line and selective content will be integrated into Peapod Packages service, a national Internet food service expected to be launched in the second quarter of 1999 on Peapod.com (http://www.peapod.com). GreatFood.com most recently unveiled a new wholesale program designed to link suppliers and specialty food stores. For retailers, the wholesale program (http://www.greatfoodwholesale.com), provides easy online access to a wide variety of specialty food. The innovative program also is a boon for specialty food suppliers, who can use it to efficiently reach a greater number of specialty food stores. "It has been a busy year indeed," Nourse said. "It is very rewarding to see our sales results and know that we are on track to attaining our goal of being the leader in e-commerce for the specialty food industry. Our strategic position is excellent, and we hope to continue to sustain these growth rates as we move forward into 1999." GreatFood.com has been recognized nationally for its high quality and wide array of products as well as ease of use and secure online ordering system. GreatFood.com was featured in Time magazine's 1998 Technology Buyer's Guide. The Wall St. Journal chose GreatFood.com as one of the suggested online holiday specialty food shops. In the November 1998 issue of PC World, GreatFood.com was named one of the best online gift shops. The Biz Rate Guide rated GreatFood.com the No. 1 gourmet food site as well as one of the Top 25 overall shopping sites. GreatFood.com headquarters are located in downtown Seattle. Additional background information is available on the company's Web site at greatfood.com. CONTACT: The Silver Company Katie Wilkinson, 206/624-0388 katie@thesilvercompany.com