Aldi ends Deliveroo deliveries as Britons return to stores
Aldi is ditching grocery deliveries via Deliveroo to focus on its own home shopping service as consumers return to stores in greater numbers.
About 100 of the German retailer’s 950 UK stores offered grocery orders and home deliveries via Deliveroo during the pandemic when shoppers increasingly chose to shop online.
Recent industry data has indicated a return to more normal shopping habits, with online grocery sales falling by 3.7% in December, compared with the same month in 2020, to account for 12.2% of total groceries, down from a peak of nearly 14% last year.
During lockdowns, supermarkets including Waitrose, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and the Co-op turned to Deliveroo to help with extra demand for home deliveries. New rapid delivery operators, including Getir, Gorillas and Zapp have also entered the UK market.
Tesco and Sainsbury’s have also been trying out their own rapid delivery services – Whoosh and Chop Chop – to take on the likes of Getir, Deliveroo, JustEat and Uber Eats.
Aldi’s move, which was first reported by the Grocer trade journal, marks a first shift away from food delivery, which is seen as less profitable, particularly for low-cost retailers whose business model is based around saving costs through simplicity and efficiency. It comes after a strong Christmas for the retailer and, and grocers in general, helped by fears of the Omicron variant which dampened desire for eating out at restaurants, cafes and pubs.
An Aldi spokesperson said: “We have decided to end our trial with Deliveroo to focus on our click and collect service, which remains on offer at more than 200 of our stores nationwide.”
On Thursday Deliveroo said that its sales were up 36% in the three months to 31 December compared with the same period a
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