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Russia's Yandex joins London’s e-grocery market

Bright yellow delivery drivers

will be winding their way through London’s streets

with the words ‘Yango Deli’ printed in bold.

It’s the latest player to launch in the UK's crowded delivery market.

This time – the international e-grocery arm of Russian tech giant Yandex.

Location: Battersea, London

We got a first look into its dark store in London before the launch.

GENERAL MANAGER, YANGO DELI UK, EVGENY CHERNIKOV, SAYING:

"Yango deli is an E-groceries business, we deliver groceries within 15 minutes and we have a really large assortment to cater for the large group of customers. It is not like a typical snack shop or corner shop."

Yango Deli is throwing its hat in the ring alongside a raft of new firms like Gorillas, Weezy, Getir and Dija

which offer deliveries within 15 minutes of ordering,

and have prompted traditional supermarket groups to rethink their business models.

The firm is counting on its experience in Israel and Paris to help crack the London market,

as well as Yandex's success in Russia with 15-minute grocery delivery under its Yandex.Lavka brand.

The company - which already delivers groceries from more than 390 dark stores or warehouses around the world,

is expecting over one million customers in its first quarter of operation,

according to UK general manager Evgeny Chernikov.

GENERAL MANAGER, YANGO DELI UK, EVGENY CHERNIKOV, SAYING:

"We are not really the new company, we have already done that before and we are the NASDAQ listed tech company with massive bank of tech talent that means we can do many things much better and much larger scale than the other ones. We know exactly what we are doing because we have already done that on the scale of more than 390 stores."

But the task for Nasdaq-listed Yandex is not straightforward,

with significantly higher labour costs than in its native Russia

and without any of the brand recognition, the tech giant enjoys at home -

Yandex is Russia's most popular internet search engine as well as its largest ride-hailing service provider.

But Chernikov says Yango Deli’s use of technology gives it a competitive advantage.

It uses artificial intelligence to improve demand projections and only takes 2-3 minutes to put together a customer's order