Valora restricts delivery service due to the canton of Zurich
Food
Valora is restricting the “avec now” delivery service in several cantons – and blaming the Zurich authorities
The retailer Valora is partially discontinuing its “avec now” delivery service. The reason for this is a decision from the Canton of Zurich. The matter looks a little different.
“There is a delivery ban,” the kiosk group Valora this Week informed some customers in the canton of Zurich in an email. The cantonal office for economy and labor of the canton of Zurich (AWA) has put the “Avec Now” service, which delivers groceries from “Avec” branches to households within 60 minutes and for a few francs, “thwarted the bill” .
Since Wednesday, customers can only be believed from a reduced number of branches. Branches that are located at train stations should no longer be used for delivery services. Therefore, the service area must be restricted, it says in the letter.
Valora accepts the decision
Valora spokesman Martin Zehnder says that according to the AWA, offering a delivery service from a location that qualifies as a business for travelers is no longer permitted. In the canton of Zurich, Valora is therefore no longer allowed to use the Avec branches at the Zurich-Oerlikon, Küsnacht and Oberwinterthur train stations for delivery services.
According to the office, it’s only about Sunday
Nevertheless, Valora will not defend itself against the decision. In any case, the kiosk group has not taken any legal remedies. On the contrary: “in the course of the decision”, Valora even discontinued delivery services in municipalities in other cantons, as Zehnder confirms. The Avec shops at Langenthal BE station and at Dornach-Arlesheim BL station are also no longer used for “Avec Now”. The delivery service in the municipalities served from there in the cantons of Bern, Basel-Landschaft and Solothurn was discontinued a few weeks ago.
The decisions Valora made on their own – possibly due to conflicts with the authorities such as those in Zurich. The economic office of the canton of Zurich, however, looks a little different. According to spokesman Fabian Boller, the decision is not about the delivery service itself, but only about delivery on Sunday.
Seco is on the side of the canton
Delivery services like those from Valora, but also from other “market participants” – meaning services like “Hey Migrolino” from Migros or “Bringr” – would initially have offered their delivery services seven days a week. She would have justified this by saying that the goods would be prepared for delivery in shops that employees are allowed to work on Sundays because they are at train stations or airports and benefit from special permits from the federal government that are specially tailored to these locations.
“This legal opinion is not shared by the office,” says Boller. It had informed the relevant shops that it was not permissible to “circumvent the requirement for a permit for Sunday work when operating a delivery service with the aid of an exception clause”. That coincides with the attitude of the supervisory authority, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco).
The canton of Zurich has also banned Valora from using the shops in train stations from Monday to Saturday for its own delivery service. Other providers such as “Hey Migrolino” continue to do this in the canton of Zurich – just not on Sundays. The fact that Valora is now voluntarily restricting itself could also have something to do with the fact that.