Food Lion goes live with more curbside

Food Lion continues to launch its Food Lion To Go grocery pickup service at more stores.

In the latest round, announced yesterday, the Salisbury, N.C.-based supermarket chain rolled out its click-and-collect curbside component to 15 more stores, including six in South Carolina, five in Tennessee, and two apiece in North Carolina and Georgia.

Curbside customers can shop for and buy groceries — including fresh produce, meat, seafood, deli and bakery items — online at shop.foodlion.com or via the Food Lion To Go mobile app and have them available for pickup at a local store in as soon as an hour. Customers ages 21 and older can also buy beer and wine, where permitted. To Go operates seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The new locations offering Food Lion To Go pickup include Aiken, Anderson, Gaston, Lexington, Loris and Warrenville, S.C.; Clarksville, Columbia, East Ridge, Nashville and Smithville, Tenn.; Candler and Forest City, N.C.; and Blue Ridge and Dawsonville, Ga.

“We continue to offer Food Lion To Go at additional stores to help our customers spend more time on what matters most to them,” Evan Harding, director of digital and e-commerce at Food Lion, said in a statement. “We want to give neighbors the option to shop however they prefer, in-store or online, while still ensuring they have access to fresh groceries at affordable prices.”

Related:Food Lion enables online SNAP EBT payments across its stores

Food Lion To Go works as follows: Customers visit shop.foodlion.com or open the Food Lion To Go app and then enter a ZIP code and select the closest participating store. Next, they add products to their virtual cart. Once done shopping, they choose a pickup window (same day or up to seven days in advance) and check out.

Perishables are stored in a refrigerated or frozen space, and hot food and other fresh items are packed just before shoppers’ scheduled arrival at the store. Upon arrival, shoppers park in a designated To Go space, and a Food Lion associate brings out their groceries and loads them into their vehicle.

Online shoppers also can use digital coupons and redeem their Shop & Earn MVP rewards program savings by linking their personal Food Lion MVP savings loyalty card to their account, Food Lion noted. Customers keep track of their accumulated Shop & Earn rewards on their checkout screen and see which clipped digital coupons will be applied to their order.

Food Lion, part of Ahold Delhaize USA, provides online grocery pickup and delivery under the Food Lion To Go brand. Orders can be placed through the Food Lion To Go website and app, both built and powered by Instacart, or via the Instacart online marketplace.

Related:Food Lion opens 75th store of 2021

Though Instacart manages Food Lion’s online shopping portal and delivery service, the retailer uses its own trained personal shoppers to pick and bag groceries for Food Lion To Go pickup orders and bring them to customers when they arrive at the store.

Most recently, Food Lion had launched To Go pickup at 14 stores in North Carolina and and Virginia and at 32 stores in the Carolinas and Virginia in June 2021. The service is now available at more than half of Food Lion’s 1,100-plus stores in 10 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states.