Sweden’s Mat.se, Volvo and iFoodBag team up for grocery delivery solution

Sweden-based online grocery delivery company Mat.se has teamed up with car manufacturer Volvo and packaging specialist iFoodBag to launch a new grocery delivery service. In an announcement posted on its website today (24 November), Mat.se said that Volvo drivers who sign up for the Volvo In-Car Delivery service can order their goods online, and then specify when and where they want the groceries delivered to their car.

The Volvo In-car service delivery is based on the use of a digital key which Mat.se uses to open and close the car once.

Mat.se said that the service is being launched in Gothenburg “but it will be offered in the rest of Sweden and other countries later”.

This is not the first time that a delivery company and a car manufacturer have announced a partnership for a car drop parcel service. As previously reported, DHL, Amazon and Audi announced in April that they were launching a pilot scheme in Munich.

What distinguishes the mat.se/Volvo deal, however, is that it is focusing on the delivery of fresh food and groceries, rather than general parcels. And in order to do this it will be using the new iFoodbag system, which is described by iFoodbag CEO and founder Karl Fallgren as “a temperature-controlled packaging solution that can protect chilled and frozen goods for up to 24 hours, unlike anything else available on the market today”.

Stockholm-based iFoodbag began testing the bags with “well-established participants within the online-based grocery store segment” in 2014 and on Monday last week (16 November) it announced a global production agreement with the international packaging and paper group Mondi. The company claims that its product has “the same production cost as ordinary food bags”.