UK – An online food ordering and delivery platform Uber Eats has partnered with supermarket group Iceland Foods to launch a new quick commerce concept: Uber Eats Market.
The launch of Uber Eats Market is a ‘new way’ that Uber is working with retailers, and builds on the existing solutions already offered by the platform.
Uber said it will ‘establish a new way for customers to order groceries’ and claimed delivery will be possible in a matter of minutes.
The platform will utilize Uber Eats technology and logistical expertise, which will be combined with Iceland’s in-store infrastructure, including dedicated staff to pick and pack orders.
This includes the marketplace option, where customers can order from retailers including supermarkets via the Uber Eats app as they would when ordering food from a restaurant, as well as Uber Direct, where Uber and the network of couriers who use the app facilitates the delivery of orders made via a supermarket’s own app or website.
Uber claims it will be able to achieve delivery ‘from store to door’ in as little as 20 minutes.
Uber Eats Market will be available to consumers in the grocery section of the company’s app, alongside other grocery options.
The new platform will offer over 1000 branded and non-branded items from Iceland, including daily essentials such as food cupboard essentials, fresh and frozen meat, and poultry as well as basic toiletries.
The delivery disruptor has worked with Iceland Foods to ensure that some of the most popular grocery items ordered via the platform are available, including fresh produce, baby formula, and oat milk.
Alex Troughton, Head of Commerce at Uber Eats UK, said this partnership with Iceland is another way that Uber Eats is becoming the partner of choice for retailers in the UK.
He added: “We know we have the best technology and we are delighted that we can work with Iceland on this new concept, Uber Eats Market, which will enable customers to order all the groceries they need in a matter of minutes.”
Uber Eats hopes the ‘innovative new partnership’ with Iceland will meet consumer demand for quick grocery and will look at future expansion opportunities.
The move comes on the heels of turmoil in the ultrafast grocery space. Certainly, startups therein have had a rough go of it throughout this year, as many had predicted even while the category was booming in 2021.
With the high costs of building out a network of warehouses, attracting and retaining drivers, and acquiring customers, the economics of the model has proven difficult, often prohibitively so.
Many players have either shut down completely and been stripped for parts or had to pull out of major markets and scale back their intentions, laying off staff by the hundreds or thousands, while investor funding for the category has dried up considerably.
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