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Amazon to vie with UberEATS and Deliveroo after delivery service launch in London

US retail giant Amazon has marked its entrance into the capital’s hotly-contested on-demand food delivery sector with the launch of its Amazon Restaurants service in London.

Launching today, the service is available to Prime Now members in select London postcodes and follows similar North American launches in cities such as Seattle, Manhattan and Portland.

Restaurants participating in the new service include Asian fusion eateries Crazy Bear and Archipelago, Michelin starred Indian restaurant Benares, healthy food outlet Tossed and Italian chain Strada.

Al Wilkinson, UK Head of Amazon Restaurants commented that the capital offers ‘some of the best cuisine from around the world’ and that the early line-up of restaurants had been handpicked by the team.

He said: “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. We’re excited to be helping many of these small businesses start offering home delivery for the very first time.”

The service, which promises to deliver to customers in just 45 minutes or less, is available as part of Amazon’s same-day delivery service Prime Now which launched in 2015 and is available in a smattering of London postcodes with plans for a more exhaustive roll out in the coming months.

Westminster, Kensington and Lambeth are all covered as part of the launch, with a number of other areas right across London now serviced by the US giant’s on-demand food delivery service, providing subscribers with free deliveries as part of their £79 per month subscription.

The move marks another big entrant into the food delivery space, which is currently dominated by local startup Deliveroo, and follows the launch of UberEATS in June.

Talking to CNBC, Deliveroo’s Managing Director Dan Warne said the startup welcomed the launch and that it would ‘drive innovation’ in the sector.

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