Asda trials new home delivery system for customers who aren’t at home

Supermarket tests passcode-protected delivery boxes as Britons return to workplaces and life away from home

Asda is trialling secure, insulated delivery boxes for customers who aren’t home (Asda)

Asda is testing out a new way of getting groceries to people who are not at home in anticipation of post-lockdown deliveries.

Instead of taking shopping to the front door, which requires a customer to be at home, the UK’s third-largest supermarket is placing secure insulated boxes that require passcodes to open outside some homes in a trial.

The boxes were installed for free as part of the 12-week trial, which involves a small number of customers in Yorkshire, the north east, Wales and the south of England.

Delivery drivers can access the containers, which store chilled and frozen food for up to four hours, by using a one-time passcode. They then lock the box to ensure the groceries are safe from theft until customers return home.

Asda increased its online capacity by 90 per cent during the pandemic to 850,000 slots as demand for online grocery marketing doubled, accounting for 14 per cent of UK grocery sales in 2020.

The supermarket expects to fulfil a million orders a week by the end of 2021 and sees its secure boxes as a way to continue appealing to online shoppers even as more people return to the workplace.

Simon Gregg, Asda’s vice-president of online grocery home shopping, told The Grocer: “As things open up again, the boxes provide a convenient way for customers involved in the trial to take delivery of their regular shop while they are not at home.”

During the trial, customers taking part can place their order as usual on Asda’s website before booking a four-hour delivery window.

There are two box sizes that can hold four to six totes of shopping, to cater for different household sizes.

As the box is insulated to maintain product temperature for frozen and chilled items, the four-hour window is unaffected by external temperatures, a spokesperson for Asda said.

If the trial is successful, Asda could look into expanding the scheme to other parts of the UK later this year.