Shoppers will now be able to buy Tesco products on the grocery delivery app Gorillas, as the two companies trial a partnership across five locations in the UK.
The supermarket will start stocking its products on Gorillas in select locations from Thursday, the pair said in a statement.
Gorillas, a German start-up that this month secured £1bn in funding to grow its business, promises to deliver to customers a selection of fresh foods, bottled drinks, and household items in only 10 minutes.
The company, founded last year, is competing with the likes of Getir, Zapp, and Weezy for a share on the market.
Earlier this week, Sky News reported that Zapp had hired JP Morgan, the Wall Street banking giant, to advise on its next capital-raising, underlining the rapacious rate at which food delivery platforms are devouring investors’ money.
In an effort to differentiate itself, Gorillas said that “by combining a market leader like Gorillas with an established grocery retailer such as Tesco, both brands are able to leverage the existing networks of Tesco’s strategically located UK stores with Gorillas’ rapid delivery business model for an accelerated and optimised consumer experience.”
The trial will begin in Thornton Heath, Greater London, and then rolled out to additional locations in the coming months.
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Across the five UK trial locations, Gorillas and Tesco said they would establish co-located warehouses within each Tesco store, utilising the existing Gorillas business model of having small warehouses full of groceries in each neighbourhood – allowing them to slash delivery times.
The Berlin-based has been growing at lightning pace in recent months, launching more than 200 of these micro-warehouses across the world in less than a year and a half. The company said it had completed 4.5m orders in the past six months alone, with operations in nine countries and 55 cities globally.