Postmates Enters The Grocery Delivery Biz

Postmates, the on-demand delivery service, announced news in a blog post on Wednesday (Nov. 8) that it is launching its first-ever grocery product, Fresh, which delivers curated groceries and retail essentials in minutes.

In the blog post, the company said Fresh recently launched in Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco in conjunction with a newly designed mobile app.

“This means customers can now get pesto, paper towels, LaCroix, Halo Top, kombucha, free-range chicken, prosciutto, salmon filet, organic apples, avocados — and pretty much all the essentials they need, in minutes,” the blog post stated.

Via the new Postmates interface, the Fresh shopping experience is intuitive and fast — averaging a delivery time of 30 minutes (vs. the two-hour window of most competitors),” Postmates wrote. “Customers can now count on us for those last-minute items. Run out of lemons or limes? Check. Almond milk? Yep. Need a sole fillet for date night? What about another sprig of oregano, mint or thyme? Yep, Fresh has that too. Think of it like an on-demand farmer’s market.”

Pradeep Elankumaran, co-founder of Farmstead and a Postmates partner, said in the same blog post that Postmates enables it to put its products in the hands of customers while they are still fresh.

“For us, it’s less about adding more items for [quantity’s] sake … we’re all about adding new categories, like fresh pasta. Our customers know that if they’re looking for potato chips, we may only carry one kind of potato chip … but they’ll know it’s the best all-natural chip in the category. We’re working toward simplification,” said Elankumaran.

Other partners for the Fresh service include New York City’s East Village Farm & Grocery and Los Angeles’ Urban Radish — a family-owned retail grocery store. Postmates said in the blog post that it is committed to partnering with direct-to-consumer grocers who have the highest-quality products.