Kroger and Instacart Launch "Kroger Delivery Now" Nationwide to Provide 30-Minute Delivery Enabled by First-of-its-kind Virtual Convenience Store

CINCINNATI and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), America's largest grocery retailer, and Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America, today launched Kroger Delivery Now – a new service powered by a virtual convenience store that is fulfilled by the Kroger Family of Stores and provides customers the fresh groceries and household essentials, value, and experience they expect and love from Kroger in as fast as 30 minutes.

Kroger Delivery Now redefines convenience by being the only delivery service in America that doesn't require customers to make a trade-off on selection, quality, price, or speed. Kroger Delivery Now's comprehensive offering of 25,000 items combines customer favorites with quick and easy doorstep delivery – whether they're shopping for a meal, snack, last-minute ingredient, over-the-counter medication or diapers. Kroger Delivery Now is available to customers when it matters, unlocking access to unmatched selection and value from early in the morning to late at night.

"Kroger Delivery Now is a differentiated solution in the e-commerce industry, not just the grocery sector," said Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO. "Our new service provides customers with one more way to shop with us and addresses the importance of convenience and immediacy. Operationally, this service reaches up to 50 million households and it's an expansion of our thriving e-commerce model that demonstrates strategic interplay among our assets, expansive store network, supply chain, and dedicated fulfillment centers and fleet, joined by Instacart's unrivaled fulfillment model and last-mile technology to provide our customers with anything, anytime, anywhere without compromise.

"Last year, Kroger achieved more than $10 billion in e-commerce sales, and we're committed to doubling both our digital sales and profitability rate by the end of 2023 and expect Kroger Delivery Now will help us reach that target," continued McMullen.

Convenience continues to be one of the most popular categories on Instacart, with orders up more than 150% since May 2021. Demand for rapid delivery also continues to grow, with nearly 20% of customers selecting Priority Delivery at checkout today. By using Kroger's existing network of more than 2,700 stores, Kroger Delivery Now creates a first-of-its-kind virtual convenience experience that makes faster delivery possible from the Kroger Family of Stores, benefiting customers across the country who live near a store, including Kroger, Ralphs, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, Fry's, Mariano's, and Smith's locations.

With the launch of Kroger Delivery Now, Instacart is also unveiling the Convenience Hub on the Instacart Marketplace, a new product experience that streamlines convenience shopping for customers. Through the new Convenience Hub, customers in nearly every major U.S. city can now shop for convenience essentials 24 hours a day, seven days a week with free Priority Delivery in as fast as 30 minutes for Instacart Express members on orders over $10.

"We're proud to expand our long-time, strategic partnership with Kroger and together unveil Kroger Delivery Now – an entirely new way for customers to access convenience delivery nationwide. Kroger Delivery Now, available only on Kroger.com and the Instacart Marketplace, reimagines the modern convenience store by leveraging the entire network of iconic Kroger Family of Stores brands to offer 30-minute delivery to customers for the first time nationwide," said Fidji Simo, Instacart CEO. "Instacart has become a powerful retail enablement platform and today's expansion of our Kroger partnership is another example of our commitment to develop new solutions that help retailers grow and meet the evolving needs of their businesses and customers."

"Instacart is one of our strategic partners and their industry-leading scale and ingenuity complements Kroger's best-in-class assets, digital strategy, and expanding seamless ecosystem, helping enable us to continue growing our business," continued McMullen. "Kroger Delivery Now reinforces our commitment to leading with fresh and accelerating with digital in an environment of increased and sustained customer expectations for fresh food on demand. This service is truly a gamechanger and we're eager to continue leading the way by expanding our ecosystem and leveraging our complementary assets to deliver a seamless experience with our total network of assets, including enterprising and innovative last-mile solutions—today's true competitive horsepower—in the most scalable, sustainable, and profitable way to advance our business and create a consistent and rewarding customer experience whether they want groceries now or tomorrow."

The Kroger Family of Stores and Instacart first partnered in 2017 and today offer two-hour grocery delivery and now 30-minute delivery nationwide. The companies expanded their partnership in 2019 to include alcohol delivery, and today Instacart powers alcohol delivery from nearly 1,500 Kroger Family of Stores across 15 states. The companies expect to continue to partner and invest in new customer experiences to further enhance Kroger's e-commerce offering.

To learn more about the Kroger Delivery Now service, visit Kroger.com/deliverynow,     Instacart.com/kroger-delivery-now, or www.instacart.com/store/hub/convenience.

Media Assets
To download Kroger and Instacart photography, please visit here.

About Kroger
At The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), we are Fresh for Everyone™ and dedicated to our Purpose: To Feed the Human Spirit®. We are, across our family of companies, nearly half a million associates who serve over 11 million customers daily through a seamless shopping experience under a variety of banner names. We are committed to creating #ZeroHungerZeroWaste communities by 2025. To learn more about us, visit our newsroom and investor relations site.

This press release contains certain statements that constitute "forward-looking statements" about the company's operations. These statements are based on management's assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it. Such statements are indicated by words or phrases such as "achieve," "believe," "committed," "contemplates," "continue," "deliver," "expand," "expect," "future," "grow," "reach," "strategy," "target," "trends," and "will." Various uncertainties and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These include the specific risk factors identified in "Risk Factors" in our annual report on Form 10-K for our last fiscal year and any subsequent filings, as well as our performance, including our ability to successfully execute our e-commerce strategy. Kroger assumes no obligation to update the information contained herein. Please refer to Kroger's reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a further discussion of these risks and uncertainties.

About Instacart
Instacart is the leading online grocery platform in North America. Instacart shoppers offer same-day delivery and pickup services to bring fresh groceries and everyday essentials to busy people and families across the U.S. and Canada. Instacart has partnered with more than 600 beloved national, regional and local retailers, including unique brand names, to deliver from nearly 55,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities in North America. Instacart's platform is available to over 85% of U.S. households and 80% of Canadian households. The company's cutting-edge enterprise technology also powers the ecommerce platforms of some of the world's biggest retail players, supporting their white-label websites, applications and delivery solutions. Instacart offers an Instacart Express membership that includes reduced service fees and unlimited free delivery on orders over $35. For more information, visit www.instacart.com. For anyone interested in becoming an Instacart shopper, visit https://shoppers.instacart.com/.

SOURCE The Kroger Co.

Related Links

http://www.kroger.com