BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Walmart is making its GoLocal “delivery as a service” business available to more independent food and beverage businesses via a partnership with Local Express, an end-to-end eCommerce platform designed to support independent butchers, delis, bakeries, and groceries.

Walmart GoLocal serves businesses of all sizes and uses Walmart’s delivery infrastructure and experience to enable local businesses to get their products to customers more efficiently and at a lower cost, according to the retailer. Over the last three years, Walmart has scaled its local delivery network to serve more than 2,000 retail locations nationwide.

“We are excited to work with Local Express to bring low-cost, customizable delivery capabilities to their independent food and beverage providers,” says Harsit Patel, general manager and vice president of Walmart GoLocal. “Walmart’s scale, delivery infrastructure and world-class operations mean we can bring reliability to business owners while they focus on serving their customers.”

With more than 500 client stores, Local Express offers private-brand web stores, mobile apps, self-checkout, and kiosks for customer convenience, as well as AI tools to manage fulfillment, inventory, deliveries, and shipments.

“We know how important delivery is for our customers, and they want that process to be as reliable and efficient as possible,” says Jonas Veneration, head of information technology at Seafood City, a Local Express client. “Working with Local Express and now Walmart GoLocal will help us pursue a new channel and bring our products to more customers with the convenience and ease they expect.”

Local Express is the first Walmart GoLocal client to focus more broadly on specialty food and beverage retailers such as local independent grocers, bakeries and restaurants as Walmart GoLocal expands and commercializes among small, mid-sized and large businesses.

“Local Express is focused on modernizing the e-commerce experience for food and beverage retailers everywhere. As there continues to be strong consumer demand for delivery, it’s especially important for retailers to have a seamless online ordering and delivery experience,” said Bagrat Safarian, CEO of Local Express. “Our collaboration with Walmart GoLocal will enable our food and beverage providers to offer low-cost, convenient delivery to their customers and stay competitive.”