Dive Brief:
- Instacart announced Wednesday it has launched a 30-minute delivery service with New York City grocer Fairway Market.
- Called Fairway Now, the service is available from the grocer’s Chelsea and Upper East Side locations in New York City and will roll out to the other two Manhattan stores in the coming weeks.
- The rapid delivery startups have gone out of business in New York City, Fairway’s new service offers a way for the grocer to fill consumer demand for quick e-grocery service.
Dive Insight:
Instacart and Fairway Market created a special aisle for Instacart shoppers that is stocked with frequently requested convenience items to expedite fulfillment for the Fairway Now service, per the press release. Instacart said that the designated aisle will be especially helpful during peak in-store hours.
The new service covers an unspecified number of “groceries and household essentials,” the announcement noted.
“Powered by Instacart, the Fairway Now service enables us to turn our brick-and-mortar Fairway Markets into convenience stores,” Perry Blatt, director of e-commerce and business development for Fairway Market, said in the announcement.
Blatt listed milk, coffee and laundry detergent as some of the items customers might want to get quickly through Fairway Now.
The service deepens Fairway’s partnership with Instacart. Earlier this year, Instacart announced it was rolling out its newest Caper Cart model to the Fairway Market Kips Bay location. The grocer, which is part of Wakefern Food Corp., and Instacart first teamed up in 2020 on same-day delivery to customers.
The new service with Fairway marks Instacart’s latest expansion of its 30-minute delivery offering, which it first launched in 2021. Since then, Instacart has rolled out the quick convenience delivery model with its marquee grocery partners such as Kroger, Ahold Delhaize and Aldi.
