Coles boss Steven Cain says food delivery platforms such as DoorDash and Uber will play a role as the grocery giant works to bring shoppers their orders faster, after the supermarket launched a one-hour click-and-collect offer across the country.

Coles confirmed on Wednesday that click-and-collect orders would now be available for pick-up within 60 minutes at 400 stores – shaving 30 minutes off the retailer’s 90-minute “rapid” boot delivery service. The company plans to expand the service to 200 more sites next year.

The group unveiled the plan at its newly refurbished store in Melbourne’s Westfield Southland shopping centre, which has the brand’s biggest click-and collect collection site.

Cain said Coles had worked to offer the largest range of grocery items of any click-and-collect program in the country, with 20,000 products to choose from. The service will be available between 8.30am and 4.30pm daily for a $5 flat fee.

“This is the first [click-and-collect site] where we’ve been able to do it for liquor as well. It will also be linked in the future to the likes of DoorDash and Uber and all those immediacy services – then click and collect becomes home delivery as well,” he said.

The food delivery sector has been in the spotlight over the past week after Deliveroo announced it would exit the Australian market.

Deliveroo has not been a Coles major partner, but Cain said the supermarket giant continued to work with Uber and DoorDash using a range of models, including delivering groceries ordered through the Coles website as well as orders made directly via UberEats or DoorDash.

“With all these things you just have to try out different things and see what works and what doesn’t,” Cain said.

Coles’ focus on quick pick-ups comes after a period of huge growth in e-commerce sales across supermarkets in the years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Online grocery sales declined at the supermarket in the past quarter, but are still showing 105 per cent growth compared with three years ago.