The rise of food delivery

With one British person out of five ordering at least one takeaway per week, and 12% of Britons’ meals coming from a delivery company, there’s a rise of a new way of eating, which keeps on growing

Just Eat

TakeAway.com

UberEATS

Deliveroo

Domino's

For years, getting food delivered to our doors was a rarity, with little choice and a phone call to a restaurant being required.

But in 2017, food delivery has become a household habit, with more than 15% of the British population’s meal being a takeaway or delivery per week in the UK and more than 35% having deliveries monthly. Staggeringly one out of six students orders a takeaway or delivery every day. (source: CGA Peach)

Online food deliveries from companies such as Just Eat and Deliveroo - where the customer can have food delivered from most local restaurants - has seen its numbers grow rapidly over the past few years. The UK public spends £9bn per year on takeaways.

The competition is hot- some services have been in the delivery game for over 10 years. like Just Eat and Takeaway.com. Just Eat is the UK leader in delivery with 17.6 million active users and 136.4 million orders in 2016.

Each of the companies is trying to come up with new possibilities of food and delivery, to beat off the competition and become market leader. There are the ones first in the market, which have been around for more than ten years and mostly deal with local food restaurants and the new start-ups, and the ones that try to attract the healthy eater with their top quality food.

Online food delivery is a simple thing, from your laptop or using an app on your smartphone you get a wide range of local restaurants with different menus, food styles, and options. In less than an hour your food is freshly cooked and dropped at your front door.

“We know what people like is continuity,” said Joe Groves, from Just Eat Consumer PR UK and Ireland, “with Just Eat we provide it and that’s why we stay number one despite the competition.”

New start ups like Deliveroo, which prides itself in offering a the highest quality selection of food and restaurants, prompts more users to sign up to their service. With an increase of users by 25% every month, Deliveroo has quickly become a key player in the burgeoning industry. Deliveroo made £130m in 2016 and is primed to continue its steady growth.

The growth many slow down though if UberEATS takes off in the way it has potential to. Last June, the leading taxi app Uber launched its own food delivery service. No numbers have been revealed yet but by becoming the first food delivery service with a breakfast option (normal delivery starts often at or after lunchtime) by pairing with PAUL, it has a unique selling point which could make it a contender in the long-term.

“We created a stickiness to service,” said Toussaint Wattine, UberEATS UK general manager, “We made UberEAT an easy way to eat the best food and we made it simple but efficient.”

The pioneers in food delivery – the pizza chains – should also not be left out of the conversation, as even with more competition, they continue to post strong numbers . Domino's Pizza is the UK’s leading pizza business with 1,004.2m of sales in 2016 and owns more than 25% of the pizza market compared to Pizza Hut who owns less than 20% of the pizza market.

Domino’s has always had a tendency to pioneer new technology and ways of delivering food hot and on time, allowing the company to stay top the tree. An example of this is when they created ‘DOM’, the voice ordering system, which increased its sales by 200,000 orders per month. Their next technology challenge? An automated delivery service, which will use robots to send pizza to customers. That’s set to launch in Europe next summer.

With technology improving daily, it is not surprising that people have decided to turn their casual trips to restaurants into a night in with their favorite food without having to leave their homes. There’s a lot of potential for the future too, with drones and automated delivery being developed to ensure that food is delivered even quicker. The food delivery services are here to stay.