The Co-op’s e-commerce chief has revealed that it is Big Macs, rather than the big four, that guide the retailer’s quick commerce ambitions.
Chris Conway, Co-op e-commerce director and MD of quick commerce, said that the organisation he looked to most regarding food delivery was McDonald’s.
“I tell my team: don’t worry about the other grocers see what McDonald’s are doing,” he told the Retail Week x The Grocer LIVE 2025 audience on Tuesday.
“Because you see their tech innovations and going digital, how in new restaurants they’ve made space for [delivery] riders and how they’ve changed how that restaurant operates… Effectively it’s a mini fulfilment centre and a restaurant as well. It’s fascinating and it’s how I see the future of Co-op going,” he added.
The fast food chain is currently upgrading its restaurants to dedicate more space to online orders, as part of its ‘Convenience of the Future’ strategy, launched in 2022. More than 800 of its restaurants will be upgraded by the end of 2026. The new-look restaurants often feature a designated delivery courier area to reduce congestion in dining areas and “create a more relaxing restaurant environment for customers,” McDonald’s said. At some restaurants, the changes have seen dedicated courier parking and drive-thru lanes.
Co-op has been ramping up its online offering in recent years, and plans to capture close to a third of the store-to-door, rapid delivery market by 2027. The retailer’s aim is to take 30% of the UK quick convenience market, which it defines as fast deliveries made from stores to customer homes.
As well as selling groceries directly via its own online shop – shop.coop.co.uk – Co-op sells products on third party platforms including Just Eat, Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Amazon Prime and Starship Technologies, the latter involving deliveries made from stores by autonomous robot.
Conway told the LIVE 2025 audience that: “I truly believe Co-op’s at the forefront of quick commerce. We do see a lot of our competitors ‘fast follow’ us in this space”.
Late last year, the retailer launched 24-hour rapid delivery in three UK cities in response to increased demand from “shift workers, parents of young families and late-night revellers”. In addition to the 24-hour service, Co-op has also extended online availability times in more than 1,600 stores – within the store’s existing opening hours – “helping more customers to shop later in the evening” it said.
Conway spoke at an Uber Eats run event in June last year, when the aggregator app revealed its couriers would soon be picking items from store shelves, as well as delivering the orders. Hailed as a first in Europe for a delivery platform, the ‘Courier Pick & Pack’ service launch comes after its rollout by Uber in the US, Japan and Australia.
Speaking to The Grocer in November, Alex Troughton, Uber’s regional general manager of grocery and retail, EMEA & UK, said the company has been “squirrelling away in the background to get it launched”.
“These things aren’t easy and take a lot of time. We’re making sure we get it right from when we launch because it’s brand new,” he added.
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