UK: Amazon enters fresh & frozen food space with Morrisons deal

Leading e-retailer Amazon has signed a deal with supermarket chain Morrisons that will enable it to begin selling fresh and frozen food in the UK for the first time, according to reports from the Guardian and the BBC.

The new deal will see ambient, fresh and frozen products available to order on both Amazon Prime Now and Amazon Pantry over the coming months. In 2015, in what was then its biggest foray into the UK grocery space, Amazon unveiled a packaged grocery offer for Amazon Prime members, but stopped short of launching anything comparable to its US arm’s Amazon Fresh service.

Commenting on the tie-up, Morrisons chief executive David Potts said: “The combination of our fresh food expertise with Amazon’s online and logistics capabilities is compelling. This is a low risk and capital light wholesale supply arrangement that demonstrates the opportunity we have to become a broader business. We look forward to working with Amazon to develop and grow this partnership over the coming months”.

Simultaneously, the UK’s fourth largest grocery retailer said that it had reached an agreement in principle with e-grocery firm Ocado to grow Morrisons.com. The deal would involve Morrisons taking space in Ocado’s new Customer Fulfilment Centre in Erith, and Ocado delivering a store pick solution for Morrisons that leveraged Ocado’s technology and Morrisons store assets, the company said.

Source: Morrisons / The Guardian / BBC