Amazon has expanded its footprint across Europe with a fresh produce launch in Italy and a possible grocery expansion in Germany on the horizon.

The online giant is on a European offensive with the launch of the Amazon Prime Now app in Italy, offering shoppers a choice from a basket of 30 different fruits and vegetables.

Apples, pears, bananas, tomatoes, zucchini, fennel and many other fresh produce items are available within a one or two-hour delivery window from 8am to midnight, seven days a week in Milan and 34 municipalities in the surrounding area.

These products have joined the grocery items already available through Amazon Prime Now, such as frozen foods (including vegetable soup and ice-cream), refrigerated items like cold cuts and also bread, pasta and coffee.

Around 20,000 products are available through the app, which is promoted as making shopping convenient and easy for customers who don'’t want to lift heavy shopping bags. The fresh produce range is also directed towards office workers looking for healthy snacks and lunches.

In a statement sent to www.freshfruitportal.com, Prime Now EU director Mariangela Marseglia suggests there is much more to come from Amazon services in Europe.

“"The new fresh products make the product selection of Prime Now even vaster and more varied, thus responding even better to the necessity that customers have to receive, directly on their doorsteps, at home or at their office,"” she says.

“"This is just the beginning: we’re constantly striving to offer an ever (sic) vaster selection based on the needs of our customers’."

Germany, the U.K. and the U.S

The Amazon ‘Prime Pantry’ service was launched in Germany last October, delivering non-perishable goods to the equivalent weight of a shopping cart.

This has led to debate in the online retail space that AmazonFresh is gearing up to add fresh produce to the service, once it has a better handle on the local market and the logistics of a fresh produce operation.

Although there has been no official confirmation from Amazon, speculation mounts that a launch in Germany is on the cards.

Meanwhile, in the U.K. there has been talk of an Amazon disruption in the retail sector for quite some time and previously when www.freshfruitportal.com has requested comment on a possible U.K. launch we have been told '‘we never comment on rumor and speculation’.'

In August 2015, we also reported how Amazon planned to take over a former Tesco warehouse operation just outside of London and very close to the M25, the main highway linking the capital to surrounding areas. At the time the rumor mill was rife as this new station was seen as a strategic move towards rolling out fresh produce delivery.

AmazonFresh launched in Seattle in August 2007, expanded to areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2013. In 2014 same-day deliveries were expanded to San Diego and certain parts of New York City as well as Center City Philadelphia.

Photo: OliBac, via Flickr Creative Commons

www.freshfruitportal.com