It’s been clear that Amazon has its hungry eyes on the meal-delivery space, but it’s now making its big move with word that Seattle’s deliver-everything giant led a $575 million financing round in London-based Deliveroo, one of Europe’s largest third-party delivery platforms. Originally founded in 2013 and now operating in more than 200 cities across Europe, as well as portions of the Middle East and Asia, Deliveroo posted revenues of $354 million USD in 2017. Reacting to the news, some industry watchers have suggested this investment is a bad sign […]
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Ford Motor Company is partnering with a robot manufacturer to pair its self-driving cars with advanced, humanlike robots to bring packages right to the front door of anxiously waiting customers. Its new partnership with Agility Robotics is focused on new ways of making deliveries, specifically tackling that difficult last step of bringing goods from the driverless car to your door. “A ride-hailing trip could double as a delivery service, dropping off packages in between transporting passengers,” Washington said. “And as we’ve learned in our pilot programs, it’s not always convenient […]
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If you’re Uber, Grubhub or DoorDash directing a huge fleet of delivery drivers or a restaurant with a lean-and-mean in-house delivery team, you have a vested interest in making sure your drivers are as safe as possible. Whether it’s causing an accident or just being a jerk on the roads, a bad driver can jeopardize a brand’s goodwill or endanger the lives of customers. With a goal of preventing accidents in delivery cars without built-in collision avoidance technology, the free Driver app from Driver Technologies’ uses everyday smartphones to allow […]
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Summing up its recent restaurant technology symposium that included 15 restaurant technology companies and investors, Piper Jaffray Senior Research Analysts Nicole Miller Regan and Joshua Long looked at accelerating changes in the $1.6 trillion U.S. food market that’s now split 50/50 between restaurants and grocery stores. The topline stat is $200 billion, as this is only the latest study projecting such a market opportunity for delivery in the coming years. That would represent 25 cents of every dollar in the restaurant industry. Diving deeper, the report focused on a few […]
Read MoreLast week, research firm AlixPartners put out an interesting look on where the delivery world goes next, and one key part of the next delivery phase looks like it may be coming fast. According to that survey, the U.S. delivery market is in the middle of “Wave 2,” where consumers want their deliveries fast, cheap and routine. The next phase of where the U.S. and other economies is heading is all about convenience and getting cumbersome, bulky items delivered. This evolution also goes beyond simple deliveries with the desire for […]
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Bite Squad, now a subsidiary of Waitr, released data around what people order during the summer months. In a list predicting this summer’s fastest-growing delivery items, the company pointed to high-growth items seen last summer between June 1 and August 31. This summer, expect more Philly cheesesteaks, a menu item that saw 68 percent growth last year and came in at No. 5 on its list of fastest growing meals. Ahead of that was Japanese hibachi with 80 percent growth and the delivery juggernaut poke showed slightly more growth at […]
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There’s no shortage of marketing options for a restaurant these days, be it print ads, billboards, loyalty programs or a snarky social media presence—but have you ever tried paying cab fare to bring customers directly to your restaurant? This is now a thing, and it very well might become a big thing, with the official launch of Uber Vouchers that allows businesses to “sponsor transportation and create a differentiated experience,” which is Uber-speak for “free rides.” Continuing the lingual flourishes, the company’s release on the new service says it’s a […]
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Home consumer delivery usage seems to be driven by available technology, but according to a model from research firm AlixPartners there are three phases that are largely pushed by consumer desires.
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Operators have to make some tweaks to get into a shared kitchen space successfully. It can be easy for the right brands, but even those with small menus and few ingredients will have things to learn. Melissa Surby-Curtin, the director of franchise operations at The Halal Guys, shared her insight on what it’s like to get into a shared kitchen space like the one she now oversees at the Kitchen United facility in Pasadena, California. It is the brand’s first foray into a shared space, but Halal Guys will soon […]
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Providing on-demand, human-powered meal delivery at major airports is a niche category of food on demand that’s heating up, with New York-based AtYourGate joining Grab in bringing meals directly to both weary travelers and airport employees. The goal, says CEO and founder P.J. Mastracchio, is to reduce the time everyone spends in slow-moving lines between flights or over lunch breaks. “A lot of those things change the dynamic in the airport,” he said of taking employees out of the queue and also bringing meals directly to travelers at their gates. […]
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