LONDON (Reuters) - British supermarket Sainsbury's <SBRY.L> has teamed up with Deliveroo to trial the delivery of pizza direct to customers' homes, seeking a slice of the fast-growing food delivery market.
Sainsbury's, whose attempt to buy rival Asda was thwarted by the UK competition regulator in April, is seeking new growth areas. The pilot is part of the group's drive to develop and implement digital technologies.
It said on Monday online customers in four UK cities - London, Birmingham, Brighton and Cambridge - would be able to order pizza straight from a store's counter oven and have it delivered.
Sainsbury's will test customer appetite for the service in a two-month trial.
Britain's food delivery market is forecast to grow from 8.1 billion pounds ($10.1 billion) currently to 9.8 billion pounds by 2021, according to the MCA Foodservice Delivery report 2018.
Sainsbury's said customers will be able to choose from nearly 50 of its products on Deliveroo - pizzas and complementary products.
Last year Walmart <WMT.N> owned Asda teamed up with Just Eat <JE.L> to trial the delivery of pizza direct to customers. Earlier this month Asda said the service would be rolled out to 50 stores by the end of the year and said it would also work with Just Eat to trial an express grocery delivery service - delivering about 100 essential lines within half an hour.
(Reporting by James Davey, Editing by Paul Sandle)
