LONDON — Tesco says Tesco Whoosh, its rapid grocery delivery service, is now running from 1,600 stores across the UK, including 180 large outlets, and reaching more than 70% of households as the quick-commerce field thins. The grocer is leaning on its store footprint and third-party couriers to turn 20-minute drop-offs from a novelty into a core part of its online offer, Feb. 10, 2026.
In a Reuters report, the retailer said sales through the service rose 47% year over year in the 19 weeks to Jan. 3, helping lift total online sales 11.2% and adding more than 250,000 new customers. Tesco online director Rob Graham said, “We have been able to grow the service quickly using our existing stores and seamlessly integrate Whoosh into our overall offering.”
Store staff pick and pack orders, then hand them to delivery partners including Uber Eats, Just Eat Go and Stuart. Tesco says most purchases through the rapid channel are incremental to shoppers’ wider spending, suggesting speed is generating extra trips rather than merely diverting existing ones.
Why Tesco Whoosh is pulling away as rivals retrench
Getir, one of the highest-profile startups, said in 2024 it would exit Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and the United States to refocus on Turkey, according to Reuters.
Incumbent supermarkets are still chasing speed, but increasingly as an add-on to their main propositions. Sainsbury’s recently folded its Chop Chop offer into its primary app, with an executive saying, “Customers shouldn’t have to think about which app to use,” Retail Technology Innovation Hub reported. Asda continues to push one-hour Express Delivery, and Ocado still offers Zoom, but Tesco’s dense store network gives it more pick-and-pack capacity close to customers.
The mechanics behind Tesco Whoosh’s 20-minute promise
Tesco has been layering in more courier capacity as it scales. In November, Just Eat Takeaway said Just Eat Go would boost Tesco Whoosh across Tesco, One Stop and Booker’s symbol brands, adding another white-label delivery network behind the service.
It is also testing a bigger role for rapid delivery beyond emergency top-ups. A Retail Gazette report on the full-basket rollout said Tesco has been trialing larger orders at certain times in hundreds of stores when car and van couriers are available, alongside a scheduling option for later the same day.
Tesco’s Annual Report 2025 said Tesco Whoosh was available in more than 1,500 stores during the 2024/25 financial year, with rapid-delivery sales almost doubling over the year and contributing about three percentage points to online sales growth.
How Tesco Whoosh moved from pilot to national coverage
Tesco Whoosh began as a series of small experiments. In 2021, Tesco trialed 10-minute grocery dispatch through a tie-up with startup Gorillas, Reuters reported. By early 2022, Chief Executive Ken Murphy was already describing a push to scale, calling it “quite an ambitious expansion programme” in a Marketing Week report.
The challenge now is sustaining the economics as demand rises. Industry estimates cited by Reuters put the UK quick-commerce market at about £2.4 billion in 2025, with steady growth expected through 2030. Tesco’s bet is that Tesco Whoosh can keep growing without becoming a cost sink — if it stays fast, reliable and tightly integrated with the rest of its online and convenience business.
