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Food delivery is a courier service in which a restaurant, store, or independent food-delivery company delivers food to a customer. An order is typically made either by telephone, through the supplier's website or mobile app, or through a third party food ordering service. The delivered items can include entrees, sides, drinks, desserts, or grocery items and are typically delivered in boxes or bags. The delivery person will normally drive a car, but in bigger cities where homes and restaurants are closer together, they may use bikes or motorized scooters.
Due to shifting habits in response to lockdowns and restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic, online food delivery through third-party companies has become a growing industry and caused a "delivery revolution." [1] Nascent technologies, such as autonomous vehicles have also been used to complete deliveries.
Customers can, depending on the delivery company, choose to pay online or in person, with cash or card. A flat rate delivery fee is often charged with what the customer has bought. Sometimes no delivery fees are charged depending upon the situation. [2] Tips are sometimes customary for food delivery service. Contactless delivery may also be an option. [3]
Other aspects of food delivery include catering and wholesale food service deliveries to restaurants, cafeterias, health care facilities, and caterers by foodservice distributors.
The first food delivery service was for naengmyeon (cold noodle) in Korea, recorded in 1768. Haejang-guk (hangover soup) was also delivered for the yangban in the 1800s. Advertisement for food delivery and catering also appeared in the newspaper in 1906. [4] [5]
In 1962, an Edinburgh fish and chip shop started delivering fish suppers, chicken and hamburgers by car within the Edinburgh metropolitan area. The food was delivered in a stainless steel insulated pot to keep it warm. [6]
A meal delivery service sends customers fresh or frozen [7] prepared meals delivered to their home [8] or office, [9] perhaps in the form of cooked, individually pre-portioned meals. Meals may come in small tupperware containers and are often labeled with nutritional information. Some providers offer many options for specific diet types like vegetarian and vegan. These services often operate on a subscription business model rather than by individual order as in pizza delivery or with the broader category of online food ordering.
An alternative type of meal delivery service [10] is a meal kit, which distributes ingredients and recipes that customers prepare themselves. [11]
Meal delivery orders are typically on demand, intended to be eaten right away, and include hot, already-prepared food. While some service providers offer subscription services, ordering for delivery usually involves contacting a local restaurant or chain by telephone or online. Online ordering is available in many countries, where some stores offer online menus and ordering. Since 1995, companies such as Waiter.com have their own interfaces where customers order food from nearby restaurants that have partnered with the service. Meal delivery requires special technology and care, since the food items are already cooked and prepared, and can be easily damaged if dropped, tilted, or left out for long periods of time. Hotbags are often used to keep food warm. They are thermal bags, typically made of vinyl, nylon, or Cordura, that passively retain heat. [12]
In Mumbai, dabbawalas deliver hundreds of thousands of lunches ( tiffin ) to paying subscribers every workday through a system of rail and bicycle links. The lunches are sent in tiffin carriers, and are prepared in the late morning by either a restaurant or family member (typically a wife for a working husband, since many families still follow traditional asymmetrical gender roles). The tiffins are then returned either in the afternoon or the next day by the same system.
In the Philippines, most commonly delivered meals are from fast food chains like Jollibee, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Shakey's, KFC, etc. Orders are being done through their delivery websites, mobile apps, or by phone. Time of delivery usually takes around 30 to 45 minutes.
In China, consumers mainly place food delivery orders via smartphone apps, with the number of users approaching 500 million people as of 2020. [13] [14] [15] The transaction scale of China's food delivery market is expected to eventually surpass US $129.17 billion, an increase of 14.8% year-on-year. [16]
Community-supported agriculture schemes work on a subscription box model, where a box of vegetables, dairy product, fish, or meat is delivered periodically from a local vendor.
Various meal kit delivery subscription services have started in Europe and North America since 2007. These typically have pre-measured ingredients designed for accompanying recipes.
Grocery delivery companies will deliver groceries, pre-prep or pre-made meals, and more to customers. The companies work with brick and mortar stores [17] or their own line of grocery items. These orders are typically larger and more expensive than normal meal deliveries, and are often not meant to be eaten right away, rather they are to replace items someone has run out of, like flour or milk. They are almost always done online, and typically take at least one day to deliver, though some companies offer same-day delivery. Many delivery services are required to offer delivery within two hours because frozen and fresh foods must be delivered before they spoil.
Grocery delivery differs greatly from meal delivery in the sense that it is usually sent as a parcel through common mailing services like USPS or FedEx, if it is only non-perishables. Since non-perishable items are normally packaged before arriving at grocery stores, they can easily be repackaged and delivered to customers without any special care. Sometimes, dry ice is added to keep perishable items fresh. Fresh and frozen foods complicate delivery which is done, usually by store/provider employees or third party services.
The grocery delivery business emerged, with hundreds of niche delivery companies springing up offering a variety of different services from weekly grocery restock to pre-planned, pre-measured family meals to simplify cooking. Online retailer giants have hopped on board too. Amazon.com, for example, offers AmazonFresh delivery service. Amazon purchased Whole Foods Market in 2017, [18] and by 2018 Amazon had added Whole Foods items to its Prime Now service, for 2-hour delivery in certain markets. [19]
According to Forbes, [20] grocery stores should deliver their own groceries to help prevent third party, part-time, non-store deliverers from becoming the 'face' or brand image of their local grocer. Limitations of having to pick and deliver groceries within a short period of time need to be remedied to allow for more flexibility to enable more deliveries to be more efficiently routed. Frozen and fresh food refrigeration units inside the store and the delivery vehicle, as well as lockable, consumer refrigeration boxes at the consumers home will be a solution that allows the groceries to be delivered at any time, further relieving delivery issues. This scenario will allow more local grocers to deliver with employees vs outside delivery services.
In addition to paying for the food, customers will often have to pay a delivery fee. The delivery fee will cover the cost of gas or other transportation costs, but usually does not go to the delivery person. [21] For meal delivery, it is common to give the deliverer an optional tip upon paying for the order.[ citation needed ] In Canada and the United States, tipping for delivery is customary. Opinions on appropriate amounts vary widely. [22] In addition, grocery stores may charge more for the foods that are ordered online for delivery than they charge for the same items off-the-shelf.
In restaurant delivery, if the delivery service is provided by a third party, such as Uber Eats or Deliveroo, the delivery fee, which can be as much as 25 or 30 percent of the value of the order, is paid by the restaurant to the service provider. In addition to the delivery fees, the service companies charge the restaurants a fee to set up the account, further cutting into the restaurants' margins. [23] Due to intense competition between the service providers wishing to sign up restaurants to use their services, restaurants have been able to negotiate lower delivery fees. McDonald's negotiated the delivery fees charged by Uber Eats from nearly 20 percent to "around 15 percent," according to a report in The Wall Street Journal . [23]
In October 2020, Montgomery County, Maryland County Executive Marc Elrich announced that he and the Montgomery County Council (Maryland) were investigating the county’s ability to force lower fees charged to restaurants by food delivery apps. [24]
In the United States, the first restaurant food delivery service in the world began in 1995 with World Wide Waiter [25] [26] and still operates today as Waiter.com. The top three restaurant food delivery services are DoorDash, [27] GrubHub, and Uber Eats, [28] which together account for some 80 percent of the sector's revenue. The remainder is accounted for by smaller services. [29] From 2018 to 2021, global revenues for the online food delivery sector rose from $90 billion to $294 billion. [1]
In Canada, Canuck Eats, launched in 2020, specifically caters to smaller communities in Canada, beginning with Merritt, BC. It directly collaborates with local restaurants and drivers, offering a model that sidesteps the high fees and operational hurdles of larger competitors. Expanding into Nanaimo, Oshawa, and Edmonton through a franchise approach, Canuck Eats adapts to local needs while boosting regional economies and diversifying the Canadian food delivery landscape. [30]
In Europe, major restaurant delivery services include Deliveroo, Delivery Hero/Food Panda, Just Eat Takeaway, Uber Eats, and Wolt.
In South America, food delivery services include Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, DiDi, the dominant ride-hailing company in China, and Rappi, based in Colombia. Both Didi and Rappi are funded by SoftBank, the Japanese investment fund that is also a major investor in Uber. [31]
In China, food delivery services include Alibaba-acquired Ele.me and Tencent-backed Meituan. Users can order restaurant food, supermarket products, vegetables and fruit, cakes and flowers for delivery on these platforms. [32] China's food delivery market is expected to cross $21 billion in 2021. [33]
In India, the food delivery services include Zomato and Swiggy. Indian online food delivery is expected to become an $8 billion industry by 2020. [34]
In Africa, the food delivery services include Uber Eats currently operating in South Africa and Nairobi, Glovo currently available in Kenya, [35] Jumia Food currently operating in Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria, Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, and Uganda, Mr D Food currently available in South Africa, OrderIn available in South Africa, Ayazona currently available in Nairobi, Delivery Yo currently available in Uganda and Yum Deliveries available in Kenya. Online food delivery in Africa is an emerging market that has seen a soaring growth in 2020 with new competitive market entries. [36] Online food delivery in Africa is slowly starting to take off, with multiple niche local delivery companies springing up offering a variety of different services ranging from food deliveries to groceries and house amenities delivery.
In Korea, the food delivery services include Baedal Minjok, Yogiyo, Uber Eats, and CoupangEats. Korea online food delivery industry is expected to reach $10 billion by 2020. [37]
In the Gulf Cooperation Council Region, after Uber Eats decided to close its operations in Middle Eastern markets, major food delivery services include now Careem Now, Deliveroo, Talabat and Noon Food since 2021. [38] [39]
As the number of restaurant food delivery systems has increased, so have the logistical challenges of tracking online orders—restaurants using delivery services usually must have each service's tablet or iPad to receive orders, which then must be transferred into the restaurant's own point-of-sales system. [40] To streamline this, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have emerged to integrate the online ordering, billing and dispatching of restaurant food orders. [41] [42] In addition to providing online ordering software for restaurant chains (e.g. Applebee’s, Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, Shake Shack), these SaaS companies' digital platforms also provide data analysis that these restaurants use for medium- and long-term planning. [41] [42] The application created for food delivery have positive influences on the performance and profits of the restaurant. Besides, it also can help to save money and time for both restaurant and customers. [43]
Moreover, COVID-19 has brought food delivery service to another level. The demand for online food delivery services increased significantly before the COVID-19 pandemic, which amounts to the US$31 billion. [44] Researcher Ahn also mentions that the revenue in the online food delivery segment increased from $76.195 billion in 2017 and aims to achieve $136.431 billion in 2022; the population of food delivery application users is expected to reach 965.8 million people by 2024. [45]
In May 2022, workers in two of the biggest GCC food-delivery service providers, Deliveroo and Talabat staged a mass walk out from their workplace in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They demanded for better pay and working conditions through one of the rare industrial acts witnessed by the country. In the first walk out, the Deliveroo workers demanded better pay from their employers, while in the second strike foreign workers pushed Talabat to suspend their plans to cut pay by refusing to make deliveries in the emirate. The Gulf monarchy prohibits the formation of independent trade unions, industrial actions of the sort, and public protests. Reportedly, Talabat drivers in UAE received 3,500 dirhams ($953) per month, without the mention of the number of working hours involved, whereas, Deliveroo drivers earned $2.79 for each delivery made. Post petrol charges, the drivers for Talabat complained that they were left with a total monthly earning of 2,500 dirhams a month, after working seven days a week for about 12 to 14 hours a day. The drivers warned of continuing protests until their demands were met. The UAE authorities remained unavailable for immediate comments. The human rights groups have criticized the emirate and other Gulf nations for committing labor abuse by paying low wages to the migrant workers. [46]
Food delivery has been criticised for enabling unreported employment. [47]
Online food ordering is the process of ordering food, for delivery or pickup, from a website or other application. The product can be either ready-to-eat food or food that has not been specially prepared for direct consumption.
Just Eat is an online food order and delivery platform. It was founded in 2001 in Kolding, Denmark, as a food delivery company, and later headquartered in London, United Kingdom, from 2006 until it was purchased by Netherlands-based Takeaway.com in 2020 forming Just Eat Takeaway.com. Just Eat acts as an intermediary between independent takeaway food outlets and customers. The service operates under the Just Eat brand name in seven countries. The platform enables customers to search for local takeaway restaurants, place orders and pay online, and to choose from pick-up or delivery options. The company Just Eat plc acquired SkipTheDishes in Canada and Menulog in Australia and New Zealand.
McDelivery is a McDonald's service that delivers food to the customer's door. The service was introduced in parts of the United States beginning in 1993 and is available in many Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries using motorcycle couriers. In some countries, McDelivery is available 24 hours a day, and in certain locations is free with a minimum order.
delivery.com LLC is an American online platform and suite of mobile apps that enables users to order from local restaurants and stores for on-demand delivery. The company currently has more than one million users and an online marketplace of more than 12,000 restaurants, wine and liquor stores, grocery stores, and laundry/dry cleaning providers.
Zomato is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company. It was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options from partner restaurants in more than 1,000 Indian cities and towns, as of 2022–23. Zomato rivals Swiggy in food delivery and hyperlocal space.
Grubhub Inc. is an American online and mobile prepared food ordering and delivery platform based in Chicago, Illinois.
Foodpanda is a Singaporean online food and grocery delivery platform owned by Berlin-based Delivery Hero. Foodpanda operates as the lead brand for Delivery Hero in Asia, with its headquarters in Singapore. It is currently the largest food and grocery delivery platform in Asia, outside of China, operating in 11 markets across Asia.
Postmates Inc. is an American food delivery service, founded in 2011, and acquired by Uber in 2020. It offers local delivery of restaurant-prepared meals and other goods. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Maplebear Inc., doing business as Instacart, is an American delivery company based in San Francisco that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada accessible via a website and mobile app. It allows customers to order groceries from participating retailers with the shopping being done by a personal shopper. The company also provides alcohol delivery in states and provinces where it is allowed. It has partnerships with 1,500 retail banners comprising 85,000 stores. Instacart reaches nearly 98% of SNAP households, offering delivery services from nearly 180 retail banners, including ALDI, Food Lion, Publix, The Save Mart Companies and Walgreens, spanning more than 30,000 stores across all 50 states and Washington D.C. Since its founding, Instacart Marketplace has powered more than $100 billion of GTV and over 900 million orders with approximately 20 billion items ordered.
DoorDash, Inc. is an American company operating online food ordering and food delivery. It trades under the symbol DASH. With a 56% market share, DoorDash is the largest food delivery platform in the United States. It also has a 60% market share in the convenience delivery category. As of December 31, 2020, the platform was used by 450,000 merchants, 20,000,000 consumers, and one million delivery couriers.
Deliveroo is a British online food delivery company founded by Will Shu and Greg Orlowski in 2013 in London, England. It operates in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar. It formerly operated in Germany, Taiwan, Spain, the Netherlands, and Australia. Its subsidiary operation, Deliveroo Editions operates dark kitchens for the preparation of delivery-only meals.
Uber Eats is an online food ordering and delivery platform launched by the company Uber in 2014. The meals are delivered by couriers using various methods, including cars, scooters, bikes, or on foot. It is operational in over 6,000 cities in 45 countries as of 2021.
Foodora is an online food delivery brand owned by Delivery Hero. It was founded in Munich, Germany, and operates in Austria, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Prime Now, LLC is a subsidiary of Amazon that oversees its same-day grocery shopping and delivery service. The name also originated a brand, including a custom app, to distinguish the service from Amazon's other offerings, but both the branding and the app have since been discontinued. The service is used chiefly by the company's own Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh subsidiaries. An Amazon Prime subscription includes and is required for access to the service, though it may not be available in all locations where Amazon Prime is offered. Third-party retail partners may also participate in the service and sell goods through Amazon's website.
A virtual restaurant, also known as a ghost kitchen, cloud kitchen or dark kitchen, is a food service business that serves customers exclusively by delivery and pick-up based on phone and online ordering. Virtual restaurants are stand-alone businesses that either operate out of an existing restaurant's kitchen or from a separate kitchen set-up away from a restaurant. By not having a full-service restaurant with a storefront and dining room, virtual restaurants can economize by occupying cheaper real estate. The reduced space lowers overall overhead and operational costs, thus yielding higher profit margins, as the price of the food provided is typically not changed. The virtual restaurant's single kitchen format allows for multiple brands to share kitchen space.
Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery company. Founded in 2014, Swiggy is headquartered in Bangalore and operates in more than 580 Indian cities, as of July 2023. Besides food delivery, the platform also provides quick commerce services under the name Swiggy Instamart, and same-day package deliveries with Swiggy Genie.
Kitchen United is a ghost kitchen company based in Pasadena, California, providing equipped professional kitchen space to restaurants for the preparation of delivery-only meals. This allows brick-and-mortar restaurants to expand their food delivery business without adding extra staff or space and allows the creation of restaurants with no dine-in service. In addition to commercial kitchen space, it provides back of house automation and ordering software that accommodates the main delivery services.
Getir is a Turkish company, operating in several countries until 2024, founded as a startup company in 2015 that offers rapid on-demand delivery services for grocery items and a courier service for restaurant food deliveries, accessed via a mobile app.
Square Eats is an online food ordering and delivery platform founded in Botswana operating in the African region. Square Eats is one of several technology companies in Africa that uses logistics services to offer food delivery from restaurants and stores that previously did not offer delivery on-demand. It currently operates in the African countries of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.
Lezzoo is an Iraqi online grocer and on-demand food delivery company, that launched in Erbil in 2018. Initially specialising in food deliveries, it has since extended its services to the delivery of groceries, pharmaceutical products, water and gas; additionally providing health and cleaning services in cities across Kurdistan Region. The super-app is the first and only Y Combinator-backed startup in Iraq.
As they fight for market share, some delivery companies have become more willing to cede better terms to restaurants.
Four tablets from various delivery companies crowd the front counter of Proposition Chicken in San Francisco
Many restaurants lack the expertise or investment necessary to build their own digital ordering systems. They turn to software providers