‘Sorry we do not deliver to your area’: geographical inequalities in online groceries provision

Figures & data

Table 1. GB delivery coverage by retailer at LSOA and household level

Retailer	LSOA/DZ count	% of LSOAs/DZs	Household count	% of households
Tesco	41,702	99.92%	25,729,960	99.96%
Asda	41,420	99.25%	25,602,765	99.46%
Sainsbury’s	40,805	97.77%	25,336,799	98.43%
Morrisons	36,010	86.28%	22,714,459	88.24%
Waitrose	35,302	84.59%	22,257,587	86.47%
Iceland	34,857	83.52%	21,690,464	84.27%
Ocado	29,557	70.82%	19,763,226	76.78%
Amazon Fresh	5,471	13.11%	3,677,320	14.29%
TOTAL	41,735		25,740,745

Figure 1. GB groceries delivery coverage by retailer and overall coverage (count of retailers offering delivery) at the LSOA level as of July 2019.

Table 2. Delivery coverage by retailer and relative deprivation at the LSOA level (proportion of households in each IMD decile with delivery coverage by stated retailer)

IMD Decile		Coverage by retailer
		Tesco	Asda	Sainsbury’s	Morrisons	Waitrose	Iceland	Ocado	Amazon
Relatively more deprived	1	100.00%	99.86%	99.50%	94.76%	79.31%	98.31%	75.60%	8.15%
	2	100.00%	99.41%	99.60%	92.85%	85.10%	96.33%	77.84%	20.48%
	3	99.99%	99.09%	98.98%	90.21%	84.36%	92.92%	76.53%	18.85%
	4	99.96%	99.35%	98.08%	85.90%	85.80%	85.90%	72.54%	15.87%
	5	99.85%	99.13%	97.29%	84.89%	86.00%	80.07%	71.68%	14.03%
	6	99.83%	98.99%	96.68%	84.87%	85.67%	75.45%	75.15%	12.70%
Relatively more affluent	7	99.99%	99.39%	97.09%	85.31%	85.98%	76.05%	76.21%	12.11%
	8	99.97%	99.60%	98.17%	86.94%	87.84%	77.65%	78.13%	11.74%
	9	100.00%	99.96%	99.36%	87.81%	89.81%	80.07%	80.37%	12.50%
	10	100.00%	99.94%	99.68%	88.80%	95.82%	78.77%	84.63%	16.36%

Table 3. Definition of urban-rural

Degree of rurality	Grouped Rural-Urban Classification Categories
Conurbation	‘major conurbation’ and ‘minor conurbation’ (E&W) ‘large urban areas’ (Sco)
Urban	‘city and town’, ‘city and town in a sparse setting’ and ‘town and fringe’ (E&W) ‘other urban areas’, ‘accessible small towns’ and ‘remote small towns’ (Sco)
Rural	‘rural town and fringe’, ‘rural town and fringe in a sparse setting’ and ‘village and dispersed’ (E&W) ‘very remote small towns’ and ‘accessible rural areas’ (Sco)
Remote rural	‘village and dispersed in asparse setting (E&W) ‘remote rural areas’ and ‘very remote rural areas (Sco)

Table 4. Delivery coverage by rural-urban classification

Rural-urban classification	Conurbation	Urban	Rural	Remote Rural
Retailer	Proportion of households within each area type with delivery coverage by retailer:
Tesco	100%	100%	100%	92.26%
Asda	99.40%	99.95%	99.38%	63.57%
Sainsbury’s	99.99%	99.49%	95.02%	25.92%
Morrisons	97.80%	87.78%	74.81%	1.58%
Waitrose	90.69%	87.39%	78.89%	4.43%
Iceland	98.05%	91.40%	43.53%
Ocado	83.98%	80.19%	57.28%
Amazon Fresh	32.59%	6.28%	2.51%
No provision				2.68%
No choice of provider			0.56%	11.49%

Table 5. food desert index scores and relative ranks by degree of rurality

	Mean score excluding online^2	Mean score including online	Proportion of LSOAs with improved rank
Conurbation	19.33	19.37	64.3
Urban	18.30	19.06	53.5
Rural	33.07	30.76	67.1
Remote Rural	44.33	49.73	12.9

Data availability statement

The e-Food Desert Index created by the research team and referred to in this paper can be accessed via the CDRC: https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/dataset/e-food-desert-index