Morrisons hopes to entice online shoppers from rivals with the promise that its food will be fresher than you can get from others.
Morrisons is expected to emphasise its partnership with Ocado means food will arrive faster than from other major supermarkets where store picking models means it often has to travel through a slower picking and packing system and even be stacked on shelves first.
The Sunday Telegraph said further details of the service will be launched this week at a salmon-packing factory in Stratford, East London. Morrisons is the last of the four major supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda to launch a delivery service.
The others, all larger than Morrisons, primarily relay on staff to pick products from shelves but also use online-only wareshouse. These too often rely on labour intensive picking packing models compared to Ocado's hi-tech system, Morrisons will say.
Morrisons has leased Ocado's Dordon warehouse in Warwickshire which is fully automated to increase the efficiency of the process. Ocado has another automated warehouse in Hatfield, Herefordshire, and a number of 'spokes' to aid swift distribution to different regions.
Morrisons is going to argue that too many shoppers still prefer to only buy ambient, non-fresh food over the internet, while visiting stores for fresh products. Many supermarkets have been accused of delivering food too nears its sell-by date and shoppers worry that delivered food is not the best available or the products they would have picked for themselves.
The Morrisons trial will begin in the next fortnight with a main launch in January. Delivery will be available first in the midlands and the North and aim to cover 50 per cent of London by the end of 2014.
Morrisons chief executive Dalton Philips said last month: 'I said at the outset that our online offer would be unmistakably Morrisons and I’m very confident that the service we unveil in January will live up to that promise.'
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