Amazon takes on Deliveroo with food deilvery service

Online retail giant Amazon has set its sights on Britain’s £9 billion takeaway market with the launch of Amazon Restaurants – a home delivery restaurant food service set to rival Deliveroo and UberEats.

The service first launched in Seattle a year ago and has now reached London, where the retailer has linked up with 150 restaurants across the capital to launch the service across 19 districts, taking direct aim at rival food delivery services such as Deliveroo, UberEats and JustEat.

Restaurants already signed up include Italian pizza chain Strada, the Michelin-starred Indian Benares, salad chain Tossed and Fitzrovia’s Archipelago.

The service is free for orders over £15, but is only available to Amazon Prime users, which costs £79 a year and also gives users access to Prime Music, Prime Video and unlimited one-day delivery.

Amazon has also said it will refund customers if they find out they have paid more for their meal than they would have in-house, unlike Deliveroo, which doesn’t require restaurants to match their menu prices.

“Based on our own research into what is important to consumers in food delivery, our team have hand-picked a selection of the best quality local restaurants in London”, said Al Wilkinson, head of Amazon Restaurants in the UK.

Amazon Restaurants is currently available in 19 London districts including the City, West End, Westminster, Pimlico, Victoria, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Bow, Clapton, Homerton, Islington, Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, Kensington and Chelsea, Southwark, Lambeth, Vauxhall and Kennington.

In the US, the service is available in 12 cities including New York, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Earlier this year rival Deliveroo expanded its offer to include alcohol, teaming up with BrewDog, Majestic and a number of independent wine merchants to bring drinks to its customers. UberEats also launched earlier this year, taking its brand from travel and into food and drink delivery.