Giant Food ushers in grocery pickup

Landover, Md.-based Giant Food has begun rolling out click-and-collect online grocery service to its supermarkets across the Mid-Atlantic.

Called Giant Pickup, the curbside service launched July 1 and is slated to become available at 100 of the chain’s 164 stores in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware by the end of the year, Giant said Monday. The program is powered by Peapod, the online grocery arm of Giant’s parent company, Ahold Delhaize USA.

To use Giant Pickup, customers go to GiantFood.com and, under the “Shop” tab, choose “Delivery/Pickup,” which brings them to the Peapod service. After placing their order, shoppers select a pickup time window, which includes next-day or same-day fulfillment, the latter in as soon as four hours. Giant associates pick and pack the orders and, upon customers’ arrival at the store, bring out their groceries and load them into their car. Participating stores have designated Giant Pickup lanes where customers can park to collect their order.

Same-day pickup carries a $2.95 fee and a minimum order of $30, Giant said. To support the launch of the service, the retailer is offering new users free pickup on their first order of $30 or more when they enter the promotional code GIANT4 at checkout.

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Thousands of products, including favorite local brands and organic items, are available through Giant Pickup at everyday store prices, Giant noted. The click-and-collect service also accepts digital coupons that can be loaded and redeemed online, and it offers the same replace-and-refund guarantee for quality and freshness as in stores.

"Our new Giant Pickup service is a great option for busy shoppers who can plan ahead and pick up all their groceries without ever leaving the car. Whether on the way home from work, heading to a summer BBQ or just getting the weekly grocery shopping done all that much faster, this really is all about giving our shoppers tools to let them shop however they prefer," Giant President Gordon Reid said in a statement. "We're proud to offer this service to help customers save time so they can get back to what matters most."

Ahold Delhaize has made expanded pickup service a linchpin of efforts to grow its U.S. market share. At the global food retailer’s Capital Markets Day event in Manhattan last November, executives said the company aims to more than double its U.S. click-and-collect sites to over 600 by 2019.

In June, Ahold Delhaize USA’s Stop & Shop chain introduced same-day pickup at 20 stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York. Earlier, in February, the company’s Carlisle, Pa.-based Giant Food Stores/Martin’s division opened Giant Direct Powered by Peapod, a pickup and delivery facility built from a former Giant supermarket in Lancaster, Pa. And the Hannaford chain in New England has steadily expanded the Hannaford To Go pickup service, which numbered more than 50 sites as of the end of 2018. Overall, Ahold Delhaize expects to give 65% of its U.S. customer base access to same-day delivery and/or pickup service by 2020.