Delivery Service Wolt Opens Market Store In Tel Aviv

Finnish-based delivery service Wolt Enterprises, opened its first company grocery store Wolt Market, in the Neve Tzedek area of Tel Aviv last week, providing customers grocery delivery services on top of its flagship restaurant food delivery services, according to reports in a number of media outlets.

US-based food ordering and delivery platform DoorDash, also announced its completed acquisition of Wolt in an all-stock transaction, bringing the American delivery platform to 27 total countries. Wolt will maintain operations in all of the markets where it currently operates, and its consumer app will continue to run independently of DoorDash. 

Wolt Market will strictly service delivery requests, and customers will not be allowed to physically shop for groceries inside the store. However, Wolt will offer a pick-up option at the store. At this time, the store will only service customers in the central Tel Aviv area. 

Wolt Market’s inventory totals approximately 3,000 products including all grocery store staples such as dairy products, fresh produce, meat, breads and pastries, frozen food, soft beverages and alcohol, as well as hygiene and baby products. It will also sell a range of local products to make good on the demand for organic foods.  

Founded in 2014 in Helsinki, Finland, Wolt is a food and goods delivery service used in 23 countries and more than 200 cities, with upwards of 50,000 total affiliated restaurants and stores. The delivery service became active in Israel in 2018 and now operates in 23 Israeli cities with a network of more than 2,500 restaurants, convenience stores, and supermarkets, among other businesses. Wolt has raised $850 million in funding to date from investors such as ICONIQ, Tiger Global, KKR, DST, EQT, 83North and Goldman Sachs. 

Lior Eshkol, CEO of Wolt’s Israel branch, said in a statement that grocery shopping will become “much more immediate and much more frequent, instead of the big weekly shopping. The technological and operational capabilities we have developed at Wolt Israel over the past three and a half years will allow us to provide customers with the shopping experiences they want.”