Food Delivery Companies Turn To Grocery Delivery

As the coronavirus makes it more difficult for people to go out due to fear of infection, delivery services like Uber Eats and competitors are expanding to add grocery delivery to their services.

The spate of stay-at-home orders over the past weeks has made delivery even more essential.

Uber Eats is rolling out programs in France in conjunction with supermarket Carrefour and will aid Paris residents in getting groceries dropped off at their doorstep. The supermarkets are still open in France, although many have added limits on how many people can be inside at the same time.

Carrefour and Uber Eats’ service will start on April 6 with 15 stores in Paris and the immediate surrounding area, and then expand to the entire country later on. Customers can also just call to order products between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. daily, including grocery as well as everyday products like hygiene and cleaning tools.

The ride-hailing company is also working on similar ideas in Brazil and Spain. In Spain, Uber is planning to work on delivering gas station convenience store items to people’s homes. And in Brazil, there will be a program to deliver items from drug and pet stores.

Berlin-based Delivery Hero has shifted its business model to begin offering grocery services as well.

Meanwhile, DoorDash has debuted a new program to deliver household items beyond food such as paper towels, Advil or other medicine, cleaning supplies or any miscellaneous item found at convenience stores or grocery stores.

DoorDash has partnered with a wide range of stores in the U.S. including 7-Eleven, Wawa, Casey’s General Store, CircleK and more, with 1,800 stores total.

The new service was already in-planning before coronavirus struck, but now, given the drastic and lightning-quick changes in American life, DoorDash has released it ahead of schedule, the press release states.

Those who want to utilize the new service can open DoorDash and locate the new ‘Convenience’ option at the top of the page.