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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Coronavirus

The Spoon team is working hard to bring you the latest on the impact of COVID-19. Bookmark this page for our full archive on the pandemic and how the food industry is embracing innovation to fight back.

On April 6th, The Spoon had a full day virtual summit on COVID-19 strategies for food & restaurants. You can watch all the sessions from our virtual strategy summit here.

You can also check out this COVID-19 resource page for food and restaurant industry.

Join Us for the COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit for Food and Restaurants

During this pandemic that has radically reshaped pretty much everything in our lives in the blink of an eye, we keep coming back to one question here at The Spoon: How can we help?

And so it’s with that in mind that we decided to have a virtual summit to discuss ideas and come up with strategies for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic for the food and restaurant industry.

This virtual summit, called the COVID-19 Strategy Summit for Food & Restaurants, will take place on April 6th and feature experts who can talk to and share perspectives about the operational, business, legal and historical impact that coronavirus is having on the food business. While no one has navigated a worldwide pandemic like COVID-19, we think bringing together some of the industry’s biggest thinkers to share their perspective and some advice, we can maybe help some of those scrambling to figure out this new normal.

The event, which we’re working on with the great people from the Future Food Institute is in just two weeks, and we’ve already assembled some amazing speakers, including:

Chef Mark Brand – Founder of Save-On Meats and creator of the Token Program to feed those in food insecure situations

Sara Roversi – Founder of the Future Food Institute

Paul Freedman, history professor at Yale University and author of American Cuisine: And How It Got That Way

Ryan Palmer – Partner at Lathrop GPM and chair of firm’s Restaurant, Food, and Hospitality group

Dana Gunders – Executive Director of ReFED and recognized expert on the problem of food waste

The event is free to attend and you can register here. We’re using Crowdcast as the platform, which is highly interactive and allows audience members to ask questions share ideas with speakers and other attendees, so make sure to come with questions..

Also, if you are or know a world-class expert on some aspect of the food or restaurant business that could provide hugely valuable to business owners or employees in this new world, we’re still looking for a couple more speakers so drop us a line (no product pitches, please). If you have an idea about how you’d like to support us by getting the world or tapping into your network, we’d like to hear from you too.

Finally, as you know The Spoon team has been working every day trying to uncover stories of people innovating on the front lines of the food world during COVID-19. If you have a story or news you think we should know about, please let us know.

Stay safe and healthy and we’ll see you (virtually) on April 6th!

McDonald’s Shuts Down U.K. Restaurants

By the end of the day today, McDonald’s will close all 1,270 of its restaurants in the U.K. in response to COVID-19 concerns. That includes takeout and drive-thru options as well as delivery.

McDonald’s sent the following tweet over the weekend:

McDonald’s franchisees in the UK are expected to follow those moves and close as well. Employees of corporate-owned stores will receive full pay for their hours scheduled through April 5.

Previously, McDonald’s had closed its dining rooms but remained open to fulfill off-premises orders around the world. Today, however, McDonald’s U.K. head Paul Pomroy told the BBC, “Over the last 24 hours, it has become clear that maintaining safe social distancing whilst operating busy takeaway and Drive Thru restaurants is increasingly difficult and therefore we have taken the decision to close every restaurant in the UK and Ireland by 7pm on Monday 23 March.” 

The chain also fully closed 50 locations in the U.S. on Friday, though those stores were part of larger buildings affected by COVID-19, not standalone locations. Still, the sweeping closures in the U.K. could be an indicator of what’s to come Stateside, particularly where takeout is concerned. Over the weekend, Starbucks ended takeout service from its U.S. stores because of the “high traffic” locations were experiencing. The Seattle-based coffee chain was one of the first to close its dining rooms and switch to a to-go model last week, with McDonald’s and others following shortly thereafter. Which could mean McDonald’s is well on its way to axing its own takeaway services in the U.S.

It seems doubtful McDonald’s would get rid of drive-thru or delivery right now in the U.S., given how important those two channels are to overall sales growth. But with news of the coronavirus changing not just every day but every hour and more states taking stricter measures to limit human to human contact, nothing is a given. This is far from the last time McDonald’s, Starbucks, and other QSRs will have to quickly shift strategy in the age of coronavirus.  

Lyft Will Deliver Meals to Seniors and Kids to Help During COVID-19 Crisis

Ridesharing company Lyft announced a number of new initiatives over the weekend to help combat problems arising from the continued COVID-19 crisis. That includes meal delivery for those in need.

In a corporate blog post last Friday, Lyft outlined the new steps it was taking:

Supporting delivery of meals for kids and seniors in need: Students who receive free or subsidized lunch at school and home-bound seniors have been heavily affected by shelter-in-place advisories. To meet crucial food access gaps, Lyft is working in partnership with government agencies and local non-profits. Starting with a pilot in the Bay Area, drivers will be able to pick up meals from distribution centers and deliver them without contact to individuals in need. We are working to quickly scale this program throughout California and across the country. 

As schools have been forced to close amid the global pandemic, there is ongoing concern about how kids in low-income areas will get fed. In response, schools have been creating grab-and-go meals, but those still need to get to the kids, something that isn’t easy when parents have to work (and fear losing their jobs). Lyft stepping in like this could provide a great community service.

Lyft also said it was activating its LyftUp program, a partnership with public heath entities, non-profits, governments and community organizations to provide additional assistance to serve populations in need. Through LyftUp Grocery Access Program, Lyft will be providing rides “to and from grocery stores in food insecure areas.”

Lyft is among a number of companies stepping up to serve the most vulnerable populations at this time. In Atlanta, Goodr has been working with schools to deliver meals to 40,000 students in that school district.

In addition to food related activities, Lyft also launched programs to assist with the delivery of medical supplies, and non-emergency medical transportation for low income individuals.

While Lyft, the company, announced these initiatives, it’s important to remember that it ain’t the C-level execs or hardware engineers or marketing teams that will be driving around and delivering meals. It’s the everyday contractors who are literally on the front lines of this epidemic. If you are still using ridesharing services (we assume you’re only leaving your house to get groceries), and are able — tip generously.

COVID-19 Got Shoppers to Order Groceries Online, but Will They Keep Coming Back?

As COVID-19 has forced shoppers indoors, the growth curve of online grocery has suddenly accelerated, with downloads of popular grocery apps increasing by as much as 2000%. Shoppers who were previously hesitant to buy groceries online have found themselves now doing so out of necessity. It’s a bittersweet victory for online grocers who have long struggled to gain real traction.

But as the old adage says, “this too, shall pass.” The current crisis will subside, and when it does, it’s anybody’s prediction if grocery shoppers will retain their newfound affection for buying foodstuffs online. I believe that the outcome of that question will be determined by the kind of customer experience that online grocers deliver to shoppers now.

Here are three levels of effort that online grocers might want to focus on to make sure that experience will keep bringing shoppers back after the crisis has passed.

1. A functional platform and robust delivery capability is crucial

Online grocers with holes in their game need to scramble. They had better eliminate technical glitches, ensure that their back-end can support purchases in large volume, secure agreements with suppliers for gluts in demand, and validate that their pickup and delivery services are built to flexibly scale.

Even some very established players have seen troubles during this spike of new traffic. British online grocers like Ocado and others came face-to-face with this problem recently, as sites and apps repeatedly crashed under the weight of new users. Some ultimately had to turn new customers away, or create “virtual queues” just to use the service. Morrisons quickly updated its payment terms to make sure that deliveries from small suppliers would not be stymied by cash flow problems.

American retailers have rather famously faced logistics problems. Instacart, Amazon and others have been unable to meet their typical delivery commitments while Walmart, Target, and Amazon are all facing severe inventory problems on high-demand items.

While it’s understood that these are unusual times, online grocers should take a lesson and develop contingency plans for higher traffic. It’s a good time to take a hard look at both the technology and the support systems that you will need to service your new customers.

2. Make sure your shopping experience is easy 

Adoption of online grocery shopping to date has largely been driven by tech-savvy millennials. Provided that your online grocery shopping website and app have a half-decent user interface, these young shoppers will natively understand how to navigate them. But that may not be so true of those who have hopped on the bandwagon recently. Either way, ease and enjoyment of the online shopping experience can make or break loyalty to your online platform.

If your online shopping experience is not already as easy and smooth as it could be, now’s the time to change that. Products must be easy to find through search functions and intuitive shopping categories. Consider carefully how you are organizing product by category and sub-category, by brand, price, and even by lifestyle or dietary choices. Think about how to best present holiday and promotion items. If shoppers feel that it is difficult to find what they want, they’ll soon switch back to what they know.

Don’t neglect sign-up, check-out, and re-order, either. Think of online grocery as a means to “always have the customer in the store.” You can make shopping easier by proposing automatic delivery of common staples each shopper routinely purchases. The more seamless these routine functions are, the more customers will appreciate the convenience of shopping online.  

3. Make online shopping about personalization, imagination and discovery  

So what about online grocers who already have a functional platform that makes it easy for shoppers to get what they need? If you are one of these grocers, you are positioned to create not just a functional shopping experience, but an extraordinary one. Online grocery should not be just “a store on a website.” By making your online platform emulate something that it is not, you’ll miss out on making it something much better.

That something should include smart, personalized recommendations to customers. When a shopper puts fresh chicken breasts, bouillon cubes, and vegetables in their cart, you could recommend egg noodles for the chicken noodle soup they are making, but you could also suggest freshly squeezed orange juice or hot tea, honey, and ginger for whoever is nursing a cold. That vegan shopper who is always buying garbanzo beans and tahini will probably appreciate you suggesting the imported middle-eastern spices that just came in. And for that customer you know is looking to shed a few pounds, you could prioritize delicious, healthy foods that help him or her choose wisely. 

Henry Michaelson | Co-Founder, President & CTO at Halla 
While studying computer science at UC Berkeley, Henry co-founded Halla, a taste intelligence company that enables retailers to predict the personal preferences of their shoppers, all in real time. He is responsible for constantly improving Halla’s machine learning algorithm and for internal leadership, especially with respect to technology. Henry’s previous projects include machine learning based classification of supernovae in the UC Berkeley Astrophysics department, a speaking role in the Warner Brothers blockbuster comedy Project X, a three year stint as lead guitarist for Joe Banks, and a patented algorithm that has distributed over $7M in awards to mobile gamers.

The Food Tech Show: How One Seattle Chef is Surviving Through Innovation During the Pandemic

From his time as director of culinary research for Chicago’s Alinea to creating video game themed dinner nights at his own Seattle based restaurant “incubator” Addo, Chef Eric Rivera has long been known for his ability to innovate.

As it turns out, innovation becomes a required survival skill during a global pandemic like COVID-19, and ever since Seattle became one of the early breakout hotspots in the US, Rivera has been relying on the out of the box thinking to steer his business through a landscape shaped by coronavirus.

I caught up with Rivera this week to discuss the ways in which his business is adapting during the pandemic. We discuss the mandatory shut down of restaurants in Washington state, taking care of his employees during the crisis, launching his own delivery service and pop-ups for take out, offering remote cooking classes to people sheltering-in-place and more.

You can find Eric at his website and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/ericriveracooks.

As always, you can listen to the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download direct to your device or just click play below.

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Week in Restaurants: Now What?

Dining rooms are empty. Restaurants must go off-premises or go out of business. Some will go out of business regardless. And for every off-premise order fulfilled, quarantined customers get their food — but drivers, cooks, and others still working are at risk of exposure to COVID-19.

The restaurant industry is now undergoing the most disruptive crisis it has ever seen; one that has already permanently changed the business. At The Spoon, we’re as confused and frustrated as anyone else. But despite having a lot of questions and few answers right now, we’re continuing to provide coverage of the ongoing fallout, talking to founders, servers, companies, and the restaurants themselves in an attempt to make sense of everything. With that in mind, here are a few more pieces of news from the week. 

Stay safe. Stay home. Tip your drivers.

National Restaurant Association Asks for Restaurant Aid 

Earlier this week, the National Restaurant Association sent a proposal to the Trump Administration asking for aid for restaurants. The proposal, which The Spoon obtained a copy of, asks for direct financial relief for restaurants in the form of loans, insurance, and new tax measures. The Association noted it anticipates restaurant sales to decline $225 billion over the next three months.

Still No Delivery From In-N-Out

SoCal QSR legend In-N-Out announced this week it is closing its dining rooms. But unlike other larger restaurant brands, In-N-Out does not offer delivery — nor does it intend to now. As Nation’s Restaurant News points out, the chain has famously stayed away from third-party platforms (and even sued one), and for now will only offer drive-thru and takeout orders. Whether or not this lack of delivery becomes a hindrance for In-N-Out as California tightens its restrictions remains to be seen.

Domino’s is Hiring 10,000 Workers

Domino’s said it will need roughly 10,000 new workers, full and part time, to meet the demand for orders now that dining rooms are shuttered and customers are staying home. In a press release, the chain noted open positions include “delivery experts, pizza makers, customer service representatives, managers and assistant managers.” In a separate statement, Domino’s outlined the things it is doing to ensure cleanliness and sanitation, including contactless delivery, additional training for employees, and improved sanitation practices. The company is expanding its paid sick leave policy for employees during this time.

Sevenrooms Launches Direct Delivery Feature

Guest management platform Sevenrooms launched a new feature this week called Direct Delivery that gives restaurants more ownership over their customer data on delivery and takeout orders in the hopes of being able to offer them more relevant marketing. According to an email from Sevenrooms, the feature can be directly integrated into a restaurant POS system, too. For the next 90 days, existing and prospective Sevenrooms customers can add the feature on at no extra cost. 

 

According to Yelp and Foursquare Data, Pizza, Fast Food, and CSAs are Up in Wake of Coronavirus

There’s a lot of news swirling around there about how COVID-19 is hurting local businesses, and for restaurants, things are looking especially grim. But what does the data actually say? Yelp and Foursquare recently released some analysis of internal data that gives insight into how our relationship with restaurants, dining, and more is shifting dramatically during this very abnormal time.

Yelp notes that many of the changes in restaurant and food business are a direct result of “the home’s rising status as the place to eat.” Considering we’re supposed to be social distancing — and a growing number of restaurants are forced to close their doors to diners, anyway — that’s not exactly surprising.

The numbers are pretty bleak for restaurants. Yelp reports that U.S. consumer interest in restaurants has fallen by about 54 percent. They only looked at data from the data range of March 8 to 18, so the number has probably increased as more and more cities and states restrict dine-in capabilities for restaurants. Simultaneously, Yelp notes that delivery and take-out are “2X more popular than usual.”

What sort of food is popular during the corona-pocalypse? Basically, anything that is suited for delivery and pickup. That means dim sum restaurants, French restaurants, and other spots geared towards more leisurely meals eaten in the restaurant dining room are suffering. Sales from food trucks and breweries are also down.

The news isn’t bad for all restaurants, though — some are actually thriving in the new normal of COVID-19. Sales from pizzerias and fast food restaurants are up 44 percent and 64 percent, respectively. Unsurprisingly, Yelp says that sales of beer, wine, and spirits are up 63 percent. And in your daily dose of heart-warming news, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), or deliveries of farm produce, are up a whopping 405 percent.

Foursquare released its own data examining the change in foodservice foot traffic from February 19 to March 13. Like Yelp, it showed that QSRs are actually experiencing an uptick in traffic, though it cited a much smaller rise of 11 percent. Foursquare noted that QSR visits are down in areas with higher infection rates, like Washington state, but up in areas of the country with lower alert levels.

Seems like people still love their chicken sandwiches. [Photo: Foursquare]

Yelp points out that these shifts haven’t affected all of the U.S. in the same way. The impact is most significant near the coasts and more muted in the Midwest and Southeast, despite the fact that many cities and states have mandated dine-in closures in those areas. However, Yelp notes that every state reflects, at least to some degree, “the new reality of the coronavirus economy — that is, until it changes quickly again.”

To help restaurants struggling with this new reality, Yelp announced today that it would contribute $25 million to support local restaurants in the form of waived advertising fees and even free advertising.

That’s nice and all, but all the advertising in the world might not be enough to keep restaurants afloat. Some spots don’t have enough saved to keep paying rent/staff with significant diminished income. Others aren’t able to effectively pivot to a delivery- or pickup-only menu.

I don’t want to end this post on a glum note, but faced with cold, hard numbers, it can be hard not to feel scared for the future of local restaurants. So do what you can to support — go buy a gift card, tip a bartender virtually, or just place a pick-up order to support your favorite neighborhood spot. Maybe together we can help change some of these numbers.

‘Pare Down Your Menu’ and Other Advice for Restaurants Forced Into Delivery

States continue to mandate that restaurants shut down their dining rooms, and across the U.S. major chains are voluntarily switching to off-premises-only models. Those measures are necessary right now as we try to slow the spread of COVID-19. But where does that leave smaller businesses with less robust delivery programs or no off-premises strategies at all?

Plenty of restaurant tech solutions exist that can speed up and/or simplify a delivery strategy. However, I talked with several individuals this week who own and/or manage such solutions, and they made it clear that right now, there’s a whole lot restaurants can do to improve their delivery operations without forking over thousands of dollars on technology.

“Before you even get to the technology, what you really have to figure out is if you’re equipped to do off premises,” says Sterling Douglass, cofounder and CEO of Chowly. “What kind of food? What’s the menu going to look like? How are you going to staff it? Can you afford to staff it?”

Douglass, along with Alex Canter and Charlie Jeffers of Ordermark, and Jim Collins of Kitchen United, took time this week to chat with me and offer some simple steps restaurants can take today to kickstart their off-premises strategy right now.

1. Pare down your menu.

Pivoting to delivery doesn’t mean necessarily mean throwing your existing menu online and dishing up the same meals in to-go boxes. There’s a reason pizza was a delivery item long before any other kind of food went mobile: it travels well and it’s relatively simple to make. 

Thinking along those lines, restaurants should assess their existing menus and decide which items best translate to a to-go scenario. “What they need to do is trim down their menu, look at the items that are easy to procure and produce, so they can make a menu and put it up online and make easy items they can get out that are going to travel well,” says Jeffers. Fried chicken, for example, tends to hold up in transit. Scrambled eggs: not so much.

Jim Collins, who in addition to being CEO of Kitchen United also runs his own restaurant, suggests restaurants create things like family-style options and, if possible, include beer and wine options. “These things will help you stay relevant to the consumer as we move forward.”  

And if there’s leftover inventory from items you can’t make right now? Canter suggests getting creative about how you can repurpose and sell it:  “[Restaurants are] selling frozen items on Postmates. You can sell frozen soup or frozen take-home pizzas and cookie dough.”

2. Consider using multiple delivery platforms.

Unless you have the funds to power your own delivery operation (marketing, drivers, technical logistics), the reality for most restaurants right now is that they need to partner with third-party platforms like DoorDash and Postmates. If possible, they should partner with all of them.

“More and more, restaurants are realizing that to sustain a business solely based on delivery, they need to increase their volume and that typically means being on as many platforms as possible. Instead of picking one or two it’s really critical for restaurants to be thinking about an omni-channel strategy,” Canter says.

An eMarketer forecast said much the same thing a while back, noting that “more options for customers” would be a key growth driver for delivery in the future.

Companies like Ordermark and Chowly, and others legitimately do come in handy here: they will set a restaurant up on multiple different delivery platforms as part of a single package deal. Otherwise, the restaurant owner or operator would have to go through the same lengthy process for each service. “Opt in to all of the marketplaces but work with someone like ChowNow to get direct ordering working as well,” suggests Collins.

3. Adjust your staffing.

This one is honestly hard to write about, especially since earlier this week, the National Restaurant Association estimated the loss of 5–7 million restaurant industry jobs. “At my family’s restaurant, we’ve had to tell the bulk of our staff to not come in,” says Canter. “That means for us, we’re a sit-down restaurant [with] waiters, bus boys that are no longer needed to support a delivery-only situation.”

He adds that running a delivery-only business requires “a very minimal skeleton crew,” which sadly means owners and operators are going to have to make some hard decisions around staffing in the near future. “This is unfortunately the situation at hand. It really comes down to repurposing your best employees to shift them to focus on the takeout and delivery side of the business.”

4. Accept that delivery is “a must” right now.

We can’t have a discussion about restaurant food delivery without at least acknowledging how controversial and frustrating third-party platforms are for restaurants. I’ll spare you yet-another rant, though, because right now, the unfortunate reality is that the majority of restaurants need to partner with these platforms right now.

“At this point, when restaurants are no longer able to provide a dine-in experience, the only way to stay open is by having a delivery program,” says Jeffers. “Most restaurants don’t have the marketing spend or the following to survive on their own.”

“If you’re a restaurant and you’re not doing delivery, you need to immediately implement a program. Just being on DoorDash and Postmates, you now exist to the people who use these apps. It’s not just worth it, it’s a must,” Canter adds.

Right now, the restaurant industry is banding together to help restaurants accept and implement this new reality of off-premises business, whether its by offering tech solutions, support for workers, and help hotlines to answer questions.

“You’re not alone,” Canter says to businesses. “Every restaurant is trying to figure out the best way to get through this.”

 

With Stadiums Shut Down, FanFood Shifts to Restaurant Curbside Pickup (and Drive-In Movies!)

Sports leagues and games large and small were among the first parts of everyday entertainment to be decimated by the COVID-19 outbreak. No sporting events (and no concerts!) means no one is going to arenas or stadiums. This is a problem for FanFood, a startup that enables food delivery directly to your seat from concession stands at large venues.

So FanFood is doing what scrappy companies do in times of crisis: it is pivoting. And like so many other software companies in the food tech space, FanFood is temporarily pivoting to help restaurants get food to customers now that dine-in is no longer an option in many cities and states.

FanFood launched a program this week to help restaurants do curbside delivery of orders. For the next 60 days, FanFood is waiving the set up and subscription fees for its service. Once onboarded on to FanFood’s software platform, restaurants can take orders and instead of delivery, they can rush food out to the curb where customers can pick it up.

For some restaurants, FanFood might be a more economical option as we learn more about some of the shady strings third-party delivery services are still attaching to restaurants during this downturn.

“We’re not like Grubhub,” Carson Goodale, CEO of FanFood told me by phone this week. “We don’t take commissions.”

Instead, FanFood splits the ten percent convenience fee added to each order 40/60 with the restaurant. So on a $20 order, the two dollars get split with 40 percent going to FanFood and 60 percent going to the restaurant. After the 60 day trial, there is a subscription fee to use the service, which is typically around $119/month.

Implementing curbside service could also help mitigate the spread of the virus because restaurants can use their existing staff to expedite food rather than having a steady stream of unknown delivery people from various services coming through the door.

While FanFood is being nimble in the face of a global pandemic, its ability to innovate might be outpaced by the severity of the virus’ spread. California just ordered all of its residents to shelter in place. Yes, they can go out for food, but with more restricted movement, Californians might just rely on delivery to get restaurant meals. Should these type of shelter in place orders expand across the country, there won’t be much need for curbside pickup.

But that hasn’t happened yet, and in the meantime, FanFood may have another ace up its sleeve: Drive-In Movie Theaters. Don’t laugh! With traditional movie theaters shutting for social distance reasons, drive-in theaters are experiencing a bit of a resurgence since everyone stays inside their car. With no end in sight for this crisis, who knows, perhaps drive-ins will become the new “stadiums” in which we experience sporting events.

Ox Verte Pivoted from Office Catering to Home Office Meal Delivery in Three Days

What a difference a five days can make. A couple of weeks back, NYC-based office meal delivery service Ox Verte had a nice business going. The certified B corp counted a couple thousand offices as customers and had a substantial run rate. Then COVID-19 came on strong in New York and people were told to work from home. In a matter of days, Ox Verte’s revenue disappeared to $0.00.

But Ox Verte Founder and CEO Jessie Gould didn’t panic or quit, she mobilized and pivoted the company completely. Instead of delivering food to offices, they would deliver it to home offices.

This week, in just three days, Ox Verte launched a new website (oxverte.nyc) and a whole new line of business. The startup now offers delivery of a box set of fruits and veggies ($95) , snacks ($4), as well as Ox Verte-made bowls ($16.50 each). Since it is now delivering to homes, the company also offers a menu of meals for families ($65 or $145, depending on size). Because it is a B Corp., all of Ox Verte’s food is plant-forward (though not strictly vegetarian) and locally sourced.

I spoke with Gould by phone this week and asked if its supply chain had been disrupted and she was quick to say no. “There is just a mismatch right now because there’s a run on grocery stores,” Gould said, “But fields haven’t stopped growing food. Our supply chain is intact and they [food producers] would like us to take more.”

I also asked if there were new sanitation or cleaning procedures that are being mandated by NYC since the outbreak. “DOH [Department of Health] procedures in NY pretty strict to begin with,” Gould said, though they have instituted contactless delivery as well as new cleaning protocols for the containers carrying food.

The pivot hasn’t come without its own challenges, however. Ox Verte had to lay off three full-time employees, and stop work with a number of contractors. Gould hopes these layoffs are temporary and that those affected can be re-hired as the business grows.

To grow that business, Gould is targeting the employees of Ox Verte’s previous corporate customers to see if there is a way those companies can subsidize meals for its people working from home. Ox Verte isn’t abandoning the corporate market altogether. The company plans to just build up two lines of business after this pandemic subsides.

In the meantime, Ox Verte’s story can hopefully provide a ray of hope for other businesses impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. It might be mercenary, but it’s also true that crisis brings opportunity. For Ox Verte, it forced them into a new line of business. Now we’ll see if there’s an actual business there.

UPDATE: This story originally incorrectly reported Ox Verte laid off 9 people. It was only three. We regret the error.

As Restaurants Fight to Stay Alive, Delivery Services Continue Controversial Practices

I’d hoped this week to write a post rounding up the moves third-party delivery services are making to help restaurants as the COVID-19 crisis escalates and businesses are forced to end dine-in service.

Trouble is, delivery services are not necessarily helping. They more seem to be hiding behind frothy PR statements that sound great when they hit your inbox but in reality do absolutely nothing to alleviate or change the 30 percent commission fees per transaction restaurants have to pay to use these services.

And right now, restaurants must use delivery. Cities and whole states are mandating shutdowns of all dine-in service for unspecified amounts of time. The majority of industry people I’ve chatted with over the last few days say the same thing: restaurants need to pivot to a to-go-only model right now.

Delivery companies are making moves, some of them helpful, some of them less so, as it turns out.

Last week, Grubhub said it would be “temporarily suspending collection of up to $100 million in commission payments from impacted restaurants nationwide.” In actual fact, and according to the fine print displayed in footnote-sized font, this temporary suspension only applies to Grubhub’s marketing commission fees, and those aren’t even completely waived. Restaurants have four weeks to repay these deferred commissions starting April 13, and upon signing up for this so-called relief program, they are also required to keep Grubhub as a delivery service for one year after.

DoorDash said it will waive commission fees for 30 days for independent restaurants that sign up with the platform from now through the end of April. The service really does appear to be waiving the fees, not simply deferring them. But it doesn’t really define what “independent restaurant” means and, I hate to break it to you, but we’re going to be in this mess a lot longer than 30 days. Meanwhile, existing customers will pay “no commission fees” on pickup orders. The question is whether waiving commission fees on takeout orders will be of much use to restaurants, since people are being forced to stay home may not venture out even for to-go orders.

Postmates also announced it would temporarily waive commission fees for new independent restaurants signing up on the platform. That only applies to restaurants in San Francisco, though, where the company is headquartered. No mention has been made of a city like Los Angeles, which has banned dine-in eating and also happens to be one of the most popular cities for Postmates’ service.

Frankly, both the efforts from DoorDash and Postmates in this area now look like thinly veiled attempts to grab more customers and boost their numbers. DoorDash, too, is supposedly prepping for an IPO, though it’s anyone’s guess if that will actually happen anytime soon.

Uber Eats hasn’t announced any changes to its commission fees. The company this week only announced a plan to let restaurants get paid out for their orders daily rather than weekly. 

I wrote last week that the survival of many restaurants partly depends on delivery services’ willingness to adjust commission fees and be of actual help to these businesses. As shutdowns continue and businesses struggle, this is now a crucial piece of the equation when it comes to the survival of restaurants.

Delivery companies, I don’t know if you got the memo that the restaurant industry is collapsing before our eyes right now, so let me again remind you. Billions of dollars in business is going to be lost. Millions of people will lose their jobs. Many restaurants will have to shutter permanently. Many more will emerge from this time (whenever that ends) in more debt and with fewer staff than ever before. 

You’re one of the few entities out there that could actually make a real difference and even in part save these businesses. What are you going to do today to fix this?

Goodr Delivers Groceries and Surplus Food to Hungry Students, Seniors in Atlanta

“Hold on, I have to get my credit card.” Jasmine Crowe, CEO of Goodr, was grocery shopping in the middle of our call earlier today. She was at the store not stocking up her own pantry but buying grocery staples for one of the dozens of families that are using Goodr’s expanded program to get fresh food during this tumultuous time. 

Goodr is an Atlanta-based startup providing the logistics needed to redistribute surplus food from large businesses (think: Coca Cola, Chick-fil-A, etc) and to non-profits feeding the hungry. And with the coronavirus outbreak shutting down schools and, consequently, taking away free lunch from students, Goodr is stepping up to make sure that kids in the Atlanta area still have healthy food to eat.

To feed students, Goodr is working with school cafeterias which are still preparing packaged meals. The company picks up and delivers these meals to designated apartment drop-off zones in areas where many students live. They’re on track to deliver meals to over 40,000 students in the Atlanta school district.

Separately, Goodr is introducing another new service to drop off groceries to families who can’t afford to (or aren’t physically able to) shop themselves, or can’t make it to food pantries. “It’s like Instacart, but it’s free,” Crowe explained to me. Since the grocery delivery service doesn’t rely on surplus food, Goodr pays for the groceries through individual sponsorships (you can do it too, if you like).

In addition to grocery and student meal drop-off, Goodr is also delivering fully prepared meals cooked by partner chefs to seniors that might be hesitant to venture out and purchase food, or don’t have the financial ability to do so. Crowe said that the seniors have the option to ask that the food be dropped off outside their door to reduce the risk of contamination. Finally, the company is increasing the frequency of Goodr’s pop-up surplus food grocery stores.

These emergency initiatives are all happening on top of Goodr’s current surplus food deliveries from offices to nonprofits. “It’s still business as usual,” Crowe told me.

To increase their delivery capacity Crowe said that Goodr has hired 10 new drivers. They try to hire drivers that were recently laid off from their jobs and pay them $20 per hour. Crowe told me that Goodr uses the Google Maps Paperboy API to direct drivers through the most efficient routes. Currently, one driver can deliver groceries to six or seven families in an hour and a half. I’m from Atlanta and, knowing the traffic situation there, that’s pretty incredible.

Goodr typically gets a lot of its donations from offices and restaurants, many of which are closed or in the process of closing. Crowe told me that right now, they’re sourcing “a little bit from everywhere.” The company is still getting donations from some food partners, like Mercedes-Benz and Coca-Cola, and is also taking food from companies that are going out of business and clearing out their fridges and pantries. 

Crowe doesn’t know how long those donations will last, however, or how long Goodr will be able to keep the lights on. Like many other food companies, it is not immune to the struggles that come with our new COVID-19 reality.

Nonetheless, Crowe said they’ll keep doing what they can and paying their team for as long as they can. “I’m a believer in good Karma,” Crowe told me as she finished her grocery shop. Then she had to go deliver the food to an Atlanta family, or senior, or student, and do it all over again.