Food Lion expands grocery pickup service

Ahold Delhaize banner Food Lion is expanding its grocery pickup service to 35 more stores in nine states, the retailer announced Monday.

Adding Food Lion To Go service to the grocery stores in Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia means that the grocer now offers pickup or home delivery throughout roughly 90% of its 10-state operating area, Food Lion said.

“We are excited to expand this convenient service to more stores in the Food Lion footprint and support our neighbors, especially during one of the busiest times of the year,” Evan Harding, Food Lion’s director of digital and e-commerce, said in a statement. “With the Food Lion To Go service, we provide our neighbors with the option to shop through the channel they prefer, in-store on online, still ensuring they have access to the freshest groceries at affordable prices.”

Food Lion said it is continuing to expand the offering in its service areas.

In states where it is legal, customers 21 and older can also purchase beer and wine through Food Lion’s pickup service.

Frans Muller, Ahold Delhaize’s president and CEO, has previously spoken about creating “omnichannel ecosystems” to draw in shoppers through a variety of different avenues, including in-store shopping, pickup and delivery.

“We think that if you bring all those journeys under your favorite brand in a seamless way, in omnichannel fashion, that makes the most sense,” Muller told WGB earlier this month. “That is comfortable, that is seamless. And that is easy …”

Ahold Delhaize always believed the “golden threshold” for grocery pickup sales as a percentage of overall sales was 10%, but Muller said that number could go even higher.

“We would see that 15% is also possible,” he said. “So there’s quite some opportunity still for quite some runway for click and collect.”

Food Lion To Go is available every day from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at participating stores.

The grocer operates more than 1,100 stores across 10 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states, employing more than 82,000 workers.