TORONTO -- Some Canadians will be able to get Slurpees, condoms, medicine and ice cream delivered to them at the touch of a button.
Berlin-based food delivery app Foodora launched an offering Thursday that will allow customers to order products from convenience store chain 7-Eleven in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
The partnership will make use of 48 7-Eleven locations to facilitate deliveries of snacks and everyday essentials, including milk, bread, fresh fruit, Tylenol, pizza, taquitos, chips and chocolate.
"We are excited about this because it has been in the works for some time," said David Albert, Foodora Canada's managing director. "We always think about what our customers may want and it was quite simple to offer them new options."
The deal marks the first time Foodora has partnered with a convenience store in Canada and signals efforts by the company to branch out in the market beyond only offering prepared meals from restaurants and quick-serve brands.
In recent years, the company has run promotions to deliver boxes of munchies for 4-20 marijuana celebrations, and semi-permanent tattoos, socks and vegan soap for various other holidays.
Its rivals Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes have toyed with dropping off cats and dogs for office pet therapy sessions and delivering frozen pizzas and ice cream.
Foodora's 7-Eleven offering will face competition from a handful of smaller delivery services across Canada that specialize in dropping off packaged junk food, convenience store favourites and everyday essentials.
FryDayBox covers a small downtown Toronto area with deliveries of products like nuts, Kleenex, pregnancy tests, cigarettes and birthday candles.
Yumee and E-panneur will drop off items including fresh fruit, gummy bears, lighters and sanitary products to a swath of Montreal and in Edmonton. L8Nite will bring consumers a wide range of products like chocolate bars, soft drinks, salsa and lozenges.
"To us, competition is a good, healthy thing," said Albert. "If no one were trying to do what we were doing it almost raises the question of does this make sense, so we welcome the competition."
Like most of Foodora's packaged junk food delivery competitors, the 7-Eleven service won't be available around the clock. It will run on limited hours, usually from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. or midnight depending on the day and city.
"We do have intentions to ultimately be 24 hours, but we have to work within the confines of our current delivery hours," said Albert.
The delivery fee is $4.50 but drops to $3.50 for orders of $30 and more.
Despite his high hopes, Albert said there are no plans to expand it right now.
However, he hinted this might not be the last innovative partnership the Canadian public sees from Foodora.
"We are currently thinking a lot about what other type of options customers may want, but there is nothing specific I can talk about now."
