Uber Eats Expands to Farmers Markets in NYC and LA

This week, Uber — the San Francisco-based ride-hailing large — 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 growth launched in Los Angeles and New York Metropolis this week, with plans to increase to different markets inside the subsequent few years.

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

With the brand new function, Uber Eats clients will have the ability to discover — and store from — distributors like Gone Bananas Bread at The Unique Farmers Market in Los Angeles and Union Sq. Grassman in New York Metropolis, along with farmers’ market hours. And as per normal, clients and couriers can talk about meals alternatives or out-of-stock objects utilizing the app’s chat operate.

Uber Eats, which was piloted in Los Angeles in 2014, has skyrocketed from a lunch supply service referred to as UberFresh to a ubiquitous app obtainable in 11,000 cities that surpassed 1 million retailers in April 2024. Uber is now leveraging that community to influence 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 baggage in Kyiv.

“Every [Uber Eats] order has 5 to 10 packaging objects included, plenty of that are manufactured from unrecyclable materials that usually results in landfills,” AlQassar defined. “If we are able to begin to make these objects extra sustainable, it can have an infinite influence on the planet.”

Nearly all of meals distributors within the U.S. and Canada recognized price as the first downside 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 high 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 influence on the planet, and that on a platform like ours, small modifications actually could make an enormous distinction,” AlQassar mentioned. “A yr in the past, we set a aim to take away damaging plastics from deliveries by 2030, and we’re doing it by utilizing our measurement, scale, and sources to make the sustainable selection the higher one.”