Ridesharing company Uber is considering getting back into the grocery delivery game. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that due to the company’s success in the delivery of food, which reached $6 billion in bookings earlier this year, it makes sense to take another look at the grocery market.
“With Eats, we’re getting into the business of moving food around. I think that this product of delivering great quality food to you at home in 30 minutes or less is magical and is going to move into grocery in a way that’s fundamental, and a lot more people are going to be eating at home … you can absolutely see grocery as being an adjacency,” he said, according to Yahoo Finance.
Earlier this year, Uber partnered with Walmart to test out grocery delivery, but the project was shut down in May after only three months. Walmart did not provide further details at the time, only saying that it would use other delivery service providers in the four markets where it had been using Uber to deliver groceries.
As Uber looks to take on the space solo, it has some formidable competition, including Instacart, Amazon Fresh and Postmates Fresh.
“Eating is something you do three times a day. So these are habits that go very, very deep. And someone needs to be the orchestration layer for people moving around cities, and I think that can be us. It’s an enormous opportunity. The real challenge for us is where do we focus and where do we partner,” Khosrowshahi said.
In the meantime, the company will enjoy the success of Uber Eats, which is currently the fastest-growing meal delivery service in the U.S. In fact, it is bringing in nearly as much new customer revenue as rival Grubhub, with customers spending more on Uber Eats than any other food delivery service in nine of the 22 most populous U.S. cities.
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