New York City residents will soon have a chance to start ordering groceries from Amazon Fresh, Re/code reported today. According to a pair of unnamed sources briefed on Amazon’s plans, the company plans to roll out its grocery delivery service to the Big Apple as early as next month.
The Amazon Fresh service will be based out of a warehouse in Avenel, New Jersey, where Amazon has been accumulating food inventory for the service. Avenel is close to Staten Island, New York, and within striking distance of Manhattan for delivery’s sake.
New York would join a handful of other cities with access to Amazon Fresh, including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. If the New York service keeps to the same patterns Amazon uses elsewhere, customers will be able to try out a free “Prime Fresh” membership for 30 days, and then will be required to pay $299 a year for the privilege of using the service.
The news comes two months after Amazon started offering customers in San Diego the option to use Amazon Fresh. The U.S. Postal Service said in a regulatory filing that it wants to expand a test of the early morning delivery program it’s working on with Amazon in San Francisco earlier this week as well.
The food delivery space is an area of the tech industry that continues to heat up, with grocery startups like Instacart (led by former Amazon engineer Apoorva Mehta) and a host of meal delivery companies all competing to put food on customers’ tables.
A representative for Amazon declined to comment on the report, saying that the company doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation.
