Food delivery apps: a booming industry
The latest hot industry is food delivery apps.
Takeaways and eat outs have always been popular given people’s busy lives but technology has created a boom in food delivery apps. It’s just so easy for anyone not wanting to leave home.
Restaurant and Catering Australia estimates the food app industry to be worth $16.4 billion.
According to a YouGov study commissioned by food delivery platform Menulog, almost half the country had ordered food online and were ready to do it again.’
Pizza and fast food are the mainstays of the nascent industry but there are new services springing up offering 130 different cuisines. That includes haute cuisine.
One company that’s part of the boom is UK based Deliveroo which had recently set itself up in Brisbane.
It claims it is now growing at 30 per cent a week.
At the same time, food delivery app Menulog just keeps adding restaurants to its service. In the past 12 months alone, it has recruited 1500 new restaurants.
Delivery Hero chief executive Clive Thorpe says demand is strong with 600,000 new users trying his company’s service in New South Wales so far this year.
He says it has completely changed people’s attitudes to takeaway food.
“If you go back just five years ago, the market has completely changed,” Thorpe told the Courier Mail. “Habits have moved from people who would have a drawer full of menus and flyers in the kitchen that they would pull out when they want to eat.
“We’ve been able to transfer restaurant menus to the internet and give consumers a choice of cuisines in their local suburbs … and they’ve got the convenience of paying online.”
So where how much will technology keep changing the industry. Can we expect drones to take over the takeaway food industry?
“There’s lots of talk about drones, Domino’s have their little robot, but let’s be realistic,” Thorpe says. “Maybe in another 30 years the landscape will have changed with driverless cars, but until then it’s about working with local businesses.”
by Leon Gettler, June 15th 2016
