Grocery Roundup: eGrocery Businesses Expand Globally

New York City is not the only major metropolitan area becoming crowded with micromobility-powered grocery delivery companies promising the fastest order fulfillment. Major Russian technology company Yandex has now launched its 15-minute grocery delivery service in London, according to a Moscow Times report Thursday (Oct. 14).

The service, branded Yango Deli, follows Yandex grocery delivery launches in Israel, in France and across Russia. The London business currently features four dark stores in the city, with plans to add more in the months ahead.

“The U.K., and London in particular, is an exciting new market for Yango Deli, as the city is especially well suited to the dark store model,” Yevgeny Chernikov, head of Yango Deli U.K., commented. “The densely populated capital is full of busy professionals, young students and many others who appreciate the convenience of a fast, stress-free shopping experience.”

The company first announced its intentions to expand to London in April.

Read more: Russia’s Yandex Expands eGrocery To Paris And London

Everli to Expand to Germany and Romania

In related news, as the global race to capture consumers’ rapid adoption of online grocery continues, Everli announced Tuesday (Oct. 12) that it is expanding its service to Germany and Romania. The Milan-based digital grocery marketplace offers an Instacart-like model whereby the company’s pickers fulfill orders from existing grocery stores. The company will enter these two new markets early in 2022.

“While demand in many markets across Europe has dramatically increased, there’s still a lack of available and convenient online same-day grocery shopping for many customers including in Germany and Romania,” Everli CEO Federico Sargenti said in a statement. “Our model … allows us to rapidly and sustainably provide a unique service offering a wide selection of fresh and packaged goods … delivering groceries in as little as one hour.”

Speaking to PYMNTS earlier this year, Sargenti described what the company is looking when considering new markets across Europe to which to expand. Everli observes whether consumers are well-poised to adopt new eGrocery options and whether retailers are seeking out such solutions.

“On the consumer side, we’re of course looking for a market that has a good level of digital penetration and eCommerce penetration, where grocery is at the early stage of that growth trajectory, which is true for most of the European countries,” Sargenti told PYMNTS. “And from a retailer landscape … we are looking [for markets] where there is a decent level of fragmentation of retailers in the market, where there is a good mix of big and medium regional players … both in big metropolitan cities and also in smaller mid-tier cities in the country.”

See also: The Instacart Of Europe Expands ‘Everything, Everywhere’ Service To Global Markets

Real Good Foods Aims to Raise $86 Million in IPO, Eyeing eCommerce Growth

As consumers seek out ways to get their food needs met more easily than ever, having grown to expect on-demand convenience since the start of the pandemic, frozen foods are experiencing something of a renaissance.

Seizing on this growth, Real Good Foods, a frozen food brand that leverages direct-to-consumer (D2C) eCommerce product testing to build a strong foundation with its eCommerce partners, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday to go public, planning to raise $86.25 million in its initial public offering (IPO).

“Although our e-commerce sales significantly over-index relative to our frozen food peers, we believe there is potential to increase our net sales through e-commerce,” the company states in its prospectus. “As a result of changes in consumer purchasing behavior, as well as a shift in how consumers engage with brands, we intend to bolster our e-commerce capabilities, understanding that we may experience less e-commerce demand in the foreseeable future as a result of consumer purchasing habits preferring in-person shopping.”

For now, the brand’s ecommerce site is secondary to its retail business, with the former serving as a tool to test products for the latter.

“We can see firsthand the success or lack of success of an item from the feedback that we get selling directly through the website,” Bryan Freeman, the company’s CEO, told PYMNTS in an interview last month, “and then from there we’ll go into retail grocery, so by the time our items show up on shelves, we have a very good sense of their success.”

Related news: Frozen Food Brands Tempt Consumers With D2C Trials To Maintain Pandemic Sales Bump

ADUSA Supply Chain Hits 2021 Self-Distribution Goal

As grocers struggle against labor and product shortages, ADUSA Supply Chain, the group of supply chain companies supporting Netherands-based global grocery giant Ahold Delhaize’s United States East Coast grocers, is taking matters into its own hands. The company announced on Monday (Oct. 11) that it has met its goal of being 65% self-distributed before the end of 2021, and it is on track to hit its 85% self-distribution goal by the end of 2022.

The goal was met when the company transitioned procurement services at its distribution center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for The Giant Company brand into its self-distributed network, and ADUSA Supply Chain aims to do the same with five more distribution centers next year.