Google adds fresh food to express delivery in crowded field

The Internet search giant will be taking on Amazon Fresh, Instacart, Uber and other food delivery services.

Starting at delivery charges of $2.99 for members and $4.99 for everyone else, Express will pick up whatever groceries you need, including veggies, meats, fish, or anything else that might need to be kept cold en route to your home. Google Express is now offered in California, parts of the Midwest, Boston, Chicago, Manhattan and Washington D.C. The company’s speedy delivery service has been around for a while now and it makes sense to provide customers the ability to get perishable items like fruits and vegetables via Google Express.

Google will start in areas of LA including Pacific Palisades, Westwood, Venice, and Marina del Rey, and in San Francisco neighborhoods such as the Financial District, the Mission, and Potrero Hill, along with many others. Instead, they partner with local grocery stores to shop for the goods as fresh as they can get them, and deliver them to your doorstep well before anything can go bad (they sit in a cooler en route to your door, just to be safe). But a growing number of new entrants are leaping into the online grocery business, including Amazon.com, which runs AmazonFresh, and Instacart. Its retail partners include grocery chains like Costco and Whole Foods. It would be interesting to see this feature in Google Now, the company’s take on a voice assistant within Android. Previously, Google Express required an order of at least $15, but for fresh food delivery the minimum is $35.