Matt Maloney, the CEO of Grubhub, has a reputation for generating his fair share of news and commentary. In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said his $12-billion-plus company has a plan behind its recent acquisitions of LevelUp and Tapingo. In another interesting nugget, he said Grub sees 10 times the order volume with zero delivery fees versus the typical $3 charge to consumers.
While it was a brief interview with Wall Street Journal Business Editor Jamie Heller, Maloney covered several topics of import to anyone in the restaurant and delivery ecosystems. First, when asked “Where are you making your money?” Maloney said the company is currently processing $5 billion in restaurant sales in the U.S. alone.
Diving deeper, he said that the company views delivery as an enabler of “a much larger business,” which has been hinted at by several of the largest third-party delivery providers at last year’s Food On Demand Conference.
Heller also touched on Grub’s recent acquisitions, asking what’s the underlying strategy as Tapingo and LevelUp are integrated into their new parent company.
“Right now, every boardroom of every major restaurant brand is asking their management team,’What are you going to do about online ordering? What are you doing about third-party deliveries?’” Maloney said. “I’m sitting here thinking that Grubhub needs to be a partner to these restaurants,” adding that most restaurant brands aren’t looking to hire a chief technology officer to tackle these questions.
“I understand what restaurants are thinking,” he continued. “This is a whole bunch of technology that you absolutely don’t want to do.” He added that it’s up to the restaurant and delivery industries at large to solve these problems, but his statements are a welcome acknowledgement that third-party delivery isn’t a home run for every restaurant company.
Click HERE for the full interview.