Amazon is adding fresh groceries to same-day deliveries in the UK as it steps up its push into online grocery following the closure of its standalone Amazon Fresh stores.

The online giant said shoppers in parts of central and east London will be able to add fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, bread, eggs and frozen foods to same-day orders.

The service will allow customers to buy fresh groceries in the same basket as tinned and packaged food, as well as products across categories including fashion and DIY.

Amazon said the service will initially launch in selected London postcodes, with plans to expand to more areas across the UK in the coming months.

The retailer is also expanding Amazon Now, its ultra-fast delivery service which can deliver orders in less than 30 minutes to parts of London. The service will launch in Manchester and Birmingham later this year.

Amazon will also extend same-day delivery to Ipswich and Coventry.

UK country manager John Boumphrey said: “We’re focused on making grocery shopping easier and faster for customers, with low prices on millions of items.”

He told The Guardian the new delivery services would allow Amazon to “scale more broadly and faster” than standalone stores, adding that grocery remains “a category we want to play in”.

“Not everything we do works but we are always going to learn from it,” he said.

Amazon closed its hi-tech “just walk out” Fresh stores last year as it reworked its UK grocery strategy. Five of the 19 former Amazon Fresh stores are being converted into Whole Foods Market branches.

The same-day grocery service will be free for Amazon Prime members on orders over £20, while non-Prime customers will pay a £5.99 delivery fee regardless of basket size.

Amazon booked UK sales of around £32bn last year, up around 10 per cent from £29bn in 2024, and has pledged to invest £40bn in the UK between 2025 and 2027.

The business has struggled to break into the UK grocery market at scale, where it competes with Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Ocado and Marks & Spencer, as well as rapid delivery and convenience operators.

Last autumn, Amazon said it planned to double the number of UK Prime members with access to at least three of its grocery options through partnerships with Morrisons, Iceland, Co-op and Gopuff, while selling more fresh groceries through its own site.

The retailer is also increasing the use of robotics across its fulfilment network, including machines that can be directed with AI-powered voice controls, as it works to speed up deliveries.

Its Darlington fulfilment centre has started trialling drone flights, making the town the first UK location to test Amazon’s Prime Air delivery service.

Boumphrey said AI and robotics were “not taking jobs but changing the nature of work”, with rising demand for engineering skills to maintain equipment, design robot routes and oversee safety.

He added that Amazon continues to take on around 1,000 apprentices a year in the UK, but warned there was a “national crisis” around the number of young people not in education, employment or training.

“I am not sure the education system we have today is producing young people ready for the world of work,” Boumphrey said, calling for more focus on communication, problem-solving and work experience.