Amazon to accelerate UK grocery plans

Amazon has revealed it plans to ramp up its UK grocery offering in the new year, adding a significant new disruptive pressure into the already aggressively competitive supermarket industry.

The UK online retailing colossus launched its Pantry service in Britain in November, offering customers a range of around 4,000 grocery and household products but currently not fresh food.

Amazon's UK boss, Christopher North, said the company plans to add thousands of extra products in coming months.

“In the new year we are going to be adding a lot more products,” he told the Guardian newspaper.

He added that if Pantry proves a success it would be likely to lead to the expansion of the Amazon Fresh service into the UK, which had only so far been launched in certain cities in the US.

North said: “When we believe we have got the offer right, and the economics, we will roll it out internationally.”