*By Amanda Weston*
Grocery chain Kroger launched a new delivery service Wednesday to compete with industry giants Amazon and Walmart.
[Kroger Ship](https://ship.kroger.com/) offers more than 50,000 products to online shoppers in Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, and Nashville. The chain aims to lure new customers with curated options, free shipping for orders over $35, and discounts.
Online shopping accounts for about 2 percent of the American food-and-beverage market, but it's rapidly expanding.
"When you look at all these new channels in the industry, they are growing extremely, extremely fast," Yael Cosset, Kroger's chief digital officer, said Thursday in an interview with Cheddar.
This isn't Kroger's first attempt at online delivery. The grocery chain has offered delivery service from almost half its 2,800 stories through Instacart.
The new service represents the chain's ambition to make shopping easier for its customers ー and help keep its brick and mortar businesses stable.
"The direct interaction with some of the fresh assortment ー produce, meat, seafood, cheese ー experiential engagement is still very important to them," he said. "They do, however, still want the convenience and simplicity that a digital engagement can offer."
Kroger is going up against Amazon, a formidable competitor, [which sold](https://www.wsj.com/articles/kroger-to-launch-grocery-delivery-service-1533117720) about $650 million worth of food items in the second quarter, up 40 percent from 2017.
As for Kroger Ship's future, Cosset said digital partnerships will also play a major role in growth.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/kroger-introduces-kroger-ship-delivery-service).
Jill and Carlo continue the discussion on vaccine hesitancy, plus the latest on several violent police encounters and why Major Biden is headed to doggy rehab.
Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua have pulled production of their runaway slave drama “Emancipation” from Georgia over the state’s recently enacted law restricting voting access.
La Soufriere volcano has fired an enormous amount of ash and hot gas in the biggest explosive eruption yet since volcanic activity began on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent late last week.
Zahi Hawass says that archaeologists found brick houses, artifacts, and tools from pharaonic times at the site of the 3,000-year-old lost city.
The White House won't surge vaccines to Michigan as it sees the worst outbreak in the country, a police shooting in Minneapolis, an historic win at the Masters, and more.
Cheddar senior reporter Michelle Castillo visited the world’s first NFT art gallery Superchief Gallery NFT
For the first time in at least a year, Hollywood is celebrating its first clear-cut box office success of the COVID era.
DMX, the raspy-voiced hip-hop artist who produced the songs “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” and “Party Up (Up in Here)" and who rapped with a trademark delivery that was often paired with growls, barks and “What!” as an ad-lib, has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 50.
Prince Philip, the irascible and tough-minded husband of Queen Elizabeth II who spent more than seven decades supporting his wife in a role that both defined and constricted his life, has died, Buckingham Palace said Friday. He was 99.
Jill and Carlo are discussing President Biden's action on gun violence, which comes during a particularly fraught week of shootings in America. Plus, overnight developments on the Amazon union drive in Alabama, and Carlo's pet theory on anti-maskers.
