Organic Garage gets into delivery with Cornershop

Organic Garage is making its move into the online grocery space.

The independent organic grocery chain has partnered with Cornershop--the on-demand grocery app that was acquired by Uber last fall--to offer delivery in as little as one hour across the Greater Toronto Area.

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"It is important for any retailer to review how to best serve its existing and future customer bases while also determining how to best grow those bases; partnering with Cornershop will allow us to do both," Organic Garage CEO Matt Lurie said in a press release announcing the partnership.

"Having a 10-km delivery radius around each of our existing locations allows us to cover a much larger percentage of the population of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) that we are not currently servicing with a brick and mortar location," he added. Organic Garage currently has five brick and mortar locations in Toronto.

Lurie said the company had been watching what other food retailers were doing in the online grocery delivery space and decided the "best and most economical route" was to partner with a third-party platform rather than develop an in-house application.

Prices on the Cornershop platform will reflect Organic Garage’s regularly priced on-shelf and flyer merchandise. And, customers can subscribe to Cornershop Pop for $99 per year for free delivery on orders over $40 and to access additional discounts.

According to the press release, Organic Garage customers will be charged a significantly reduced service fee because the grocer is an official Cornershop partner.

Organic Garage is Cornershop's second Canadian grocery retail partner. Walmart Canada announced last fall it had entered a partnership with Cornershop for one-hour grocery delivery in the Greater Toronto Area.