Loblaw bringing grocery delivery to Regina

Pretty soon Regina residents will be able to get their groceries delivered to their door.

“You go in, enter a postal code on the Instacart site, or on the app that’s available. It’ll show you the location you’ll be choosing, and literally you would just go in and shop the site as you would,” Adam Jardine, the director of e-commerce for Loblaw Digital explained.

The Queen City was one of five locations added to Loblaw’s online delivery service, but they plan on servicing 70 per cent of the country, including Saskatoon, by the end of the year.

“I think every major market right now is on our radar, it’s just a matter of timing, but I would say closer to fall time-frame,” Jardine said.

That means residents won’t have to brave the cold come winter.

“To be able to do on-demand delivery, I mean you can get your groceries in less than an hour, for a lot of customers that super resonates,” he continued.

Global News asked shoppers at a local Loblaw-owned store whether or not they would consider a delivery service.

“No, I just want to touch it and feel it,” explained one shopper. “I like coming in and experiencing the shopping myself. Picking things out on my own,” added another.

One customer, who was using Superstore’s Click & Collect online shopping service, said while she enjoyed the convenience of being able to avoid the aisles, she wasn’t ready to give up the trek to the store.

“Probably not, I like when I’m already out and about I can just kind of stop by.”

Even though some shoppers aren’t ready to fully embrace the movement, Regina farmers certainly are.

Local & Fresh is a farm-to-table delivery service that has been serving customers in the Queen City for the past four years. Their stock is entirely made up of local goods, sourced from across Saskatchewan.

“We knew this was coming but I think what sets us apart though, is we’re working with local producers. So that’s that. Bigger box stores will never be able to compete with and do as well as we do,” Tim Schultz, the company CEO said.

Even though Schultz has been able to avoid the impact of Big Grocery, others haven’t been so lucky.

Neil Stang runs Grocery Freedom, a Regina-based grocery delivery service. He told Global News he has lost 75 per cent of his business since Loblaw introduced Click & Collect, and Save-On-Foods added their own delivery service.

“Their fees are way less than I can charge as they are able to get the product at wholesale prices and still charge the markup, plus their delivery fee. My fees are as low as I could possibly charge and they are too low for me to make any money- especially with the loss of costumers,” Stang noted.