The Co-op has launched its first online delivery service with the use of electric cargo bikes.

The supermarket said shoppers can now order products via a dedicated website, with a courier delivering the items by electric bike within two hours for a standard £5 charge on a minimum £15 spend.

The service will initially be available to shoppers within a four kilometre radius of a store on the Kings Road in London’s Chelsea, before being rolled out to a further eight London stores.

The retailer plans to make online shopping available in a number of UK towns and cities.

Co-op head of food digital, Chris Conway, said: “As the leaders in convenience shopping, we want to look at different ways of bringing our award-winning products closer to shoppers, and this new service does exactly that.”

James FitzGerald, managing director of e-cargobikes.com said: “We are thrilled that a highly respected national brand like Co-op are demonstrating environmental leadership by launching their online delivery service using e-cargobikes.

“We are re-imagining grocery deliveries and exploring a more sustainable transport system with our e-cargobikes that can do the same job as a van while requiring a fraction of the energy.”

The Co-op said it was considering a number of different home delivery schemes, and recently announced a free taxi grocery delivery service at eight stores around the UK.

It is also trialling the use of robots in Milton Keynes to make small deliveries from a local store.