Blok and Gorillas open virtual supermarkets in Portugal

 In Catering and Hospitality, News, Retail, Supermarkets

You’ve heard of Uber Eats and Glovo, the restaurant delivery service. Well, now the virtual supermarket concept has been launched onto the Portuguese market.

Blok and Gorillas are the two new names in the ‘dark stores’ network in the food retail segment.
These are virtual supermarkets, one Spanish and the other German which are cashing on the demand for home delivery of groceries delivered directly from their warehouses to customers within 10 minutes (traffic permitting).
Blok was founded in Barcelona and is already present in Spain, Italy and Germany and now wants to capitalise on the growing demand for home delivery service with the difference that they claim to be able to deliver the purchases to your home directly from the warehouse faster than supermarkets.
Blok began in Barcelona and is now in Portugal. The Gorillas company was founded in Germany and expanded to Holland, the UK and France. Portugal is the company’s fifth market.
The companies have yet to state when they will officially launch their services in Portugal or the cities which will be involved, although it is likely that Lisbon and Porto will be the testbeds.
However both companies are already recruiting for the national market with Blok looking for warehouse managers from which the items purchased by the customers via an application are sent to their address.
These companies have no physical supermarkets. They use an Amazon model of warehouses, a virtual supermarket stock which is ordered on respective iOS and Android smartphone applications.
Blok is also said to be looking for spaces in Lisbon and Porto where it can store its produce. According to a statement from Gorillas, “Gorillas wants to break into the huge market that is still in the hands of the traditional players”.
In Portugal the retail food market is dominated by Sonae (Continente) and Jerónimo Martins (Pingo Doce).