THE CHALLENGE Surviving a major crisis — an immigration audit that decimated the company’s work force — at a time when the company was hemorrhaging money and alienating customers because its basic business model was not working.

THE BACKGROUND When FreshDirect was founded in 1999 — in those euphoric days before the Internet bubble burst — the idea of an online grocer in New York City seemed promising. The company would not only sell just farm-fresh food, it would sell time and convenience, too.

FreshDirect started building its 300,000-square-foot headquarters and packing plant in 2000 in the Long Island City section of Queens and made its first deliveries two years later. But little went as planned. “We broke too many eggs,” said Richard S. Braddock, who would become the company’s chairman in 2005 and its chief executive in 2008. “We showed up with thawed ice cream. We bruised the produce. We delivered late. We missed boxes. We didn’t remediate your service issues.”

During FreshDirect’s formative years, the only thing that kept the company alive was its ability to churn through customers. A series of incentives for first-time buyers — including a $50 discount on orders of $100 or more — kept attracting newcomers, but most of them dropped the service after their discounts ran out.

Back then, according to Mr. Braddock, about 85 percent of the company’s customers placed just one or two orders before giving up on the site. Revenue was on the rise, but profits did not follow. Inevitably, FreshDirect started running out of cash.

Against that bleak backdrop, a crisis struck at the end of 2007. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced plans to inspect the company’s I-9 employment eligibility records.

On Dec. 9, the day before the audit was to begin, FreshDirect managers asked their employees to provide documents proving their