Instacart workers show off hundreds of dollars in free food that they keep from canceled orders. 'This is the only perk of working Instacart.'

• Instacart shoppers often end up with free groceries when they can't deliver an order.
• Sometimes, customers don't respond to shoppers or they cancel an order at the last minute.
• One TikToker called it "the only perk of working" for Instacart.

It happens all the time: An Instacart shopper buys a cart full of groceries, then finds out that they are undeliverable because the customer canceled the order last minute or isn't home when they pull up.

But for some shoppers, those kinds of last-minute obstacles are a perk: Instacart often lets shoppers keep all or some of the groceries for free.