Uber Eats Expands to Farmers Markets in NYC and LA

This week, Uber — the San Francisco-based ride-hailing big — introduced that Uber Eats will quickly be including contemporary produce from farmers markets to the meals supply app, amongst an array of sustainability initiatives on the firm’s second annual GO-GET Zero occasion in London. The enlargement launched in Los Angeles and New York Metropolis this week, with plans to broaden to different markets throughout the subsequent few years.

“We all know that purchasing native and seasonal produce is one other technique to reside extra sustainably, so in an effort to make {that a} bit extra easy for our prospects, we’re thrilled to welcome beloved purveyors from native farmers markets to Uber Eats,” Fay AlQassar, international head of supply sustainability, informed Meals & Wine. “Plus, we sit up for providing farmers a brand new and different technique to promote their items.”

With the brand new function, Uber Eats prospects will be capable of discover — and store from — distributors like Gone Bananas Bread at The Authentic Farmers Market in Los Angeles and Union Sq. Grassman in New York Metropolis, at the side of farmers market hours. And as per ordinary, prospects and couriers can talk about meals alternatives or out-of-stock gadgets utilizing the app’s chat operate.

Uber Eats, which was piloted in Los Angeles in 2014, has skyrocketed from a lunch supply service known as UberFresh to a ubiquitous app accessible in 11,000 cities that surpassed 1 million retailers in April 2024. Uber is now leveraging that community to impression change with the Uber Inexperienced Packaging Market and a marketing campaign educating retailers on reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging choices of their markets — like Notpla, which replaces petrol-based coating with seaweed in London so packaging disappears like a banana peel, and Releaf, which turns fallen leaves into paper luggage in Kyiv.

“Every [Uber Eats] order has 5 to 10 packaging gadgets included, loads of that are fabricated from unrecyclable materials that sometimes results in landfills,” AlQassar defined. “If we will begin to make these gadgets extra sustainable, it’ll have an infinite impression on the planet.”

The vast majority of meals distributors within the U.S. and Canada recognized price as the first drawback with selecting sustainable packaging, so Uber Eats is incentivizing retailers with discounted containers, plates, cutlery, and extra compostable or recyclable meals packaging from companions like Inexperienced Paper Merchandise. 

In tandem with these rollouts, the Uber Eats app has launched a Local weather Store (see the globe icon on the prime of the house display screen) that includes merchandise like Cameron Diaz’s natural wine line Avaline and reusable bag model Stasher.

“It’s all about proving with actions and never simply phrases that sustainable selections could make sense for retailers, delight customers, and decrease impression on the planet, and that on a platform like ours, small adjustments actually could make an enormous distinction,” AlQassar mentioned. “A 12 months in the past, we set a purpose to take away damaging plastics from deliveries by 2030, and we’re doing it by utilizing our measurement, scale, and assets to make the sustainable selection the higher one.”