Tesco introduces major change to delivery service - and it's good news for shoppers

Tesco introduced change that will allow shoppers to order their big groceries and have it delivered on the same day. The major supermarket has upgraded its Whoosh service, which is available in more than 1,500 locations, to allow customers to increase their order sizes.

The fast delivery service enabled customers to place small orders, which were delivered on a moped the same day. However, a new partnership with delivery company Stuart will allow groceries to be delivered by car or van-driving couriers.

Hundreds of select Tesco stores will increase the upper limit on order size at certain times of the day, reports The Sun.

However, these deliveries will be subject to availability at the time of the order. For example, if there are free van drivers in the area when the shopper is filling their basket, the full-grocery option will become available on the Tesco app.

Cornelia Raportaru, Stuart's CEO, told The Grocer: "If you're closer to a large Tesco store, you could literally order anything you want.

"Our strategy has been to push on innovation and do things no one else is doing."

"One example is large baskets - the appreciation that [shoppers] want to order a large basket for same-day delivery and not have to wait two days.

"Today in the UK, there's almost no one except Stuart that has that capability that is cost-effective on all sides and rewarding also for the courier partners."

Larger basket orders will incur an additional delivery fee of £2.99, but no extra service charge will be applied.

The Whoosh service was first introduced in 2021. According to Tesco, it has become increasingly popular, with a 60% year-on-year growth in demand.

Ken Murphy, Tesco's CEO, told The Grocer: "It's now a really meaningful business. It's now growing at a really rapid rate. It has, we believe, some real competitive advantage that we want to exploit.

"So, you can see further investment in that. I think there's quite a long way to go before we would say that model is mature."