• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Custom Events
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • Send us a Tip
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • About
The Spoon
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Advertise
  • About

Students at Columbia Develop New Food Delivery App for Dining Halls

by Jennifer Marston
March 9, 2020March 9, 2020Filed under:
  • Business of Food
  • Delivery & Commerce
  • Featured
  • Restaurant Tech
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Students at Columbia University have developed a food delivery service specifically geared towards getting food from dining halls around campus. Called Grubify, the app-based service got official approval from the university last week and will launch a beta program, according to the Columbia Spectator.

The Grubify app was designed specifically to make the process of getting food from the dining hall easier for students. Founders Kidus Zelalem, Amir Mustefa, and Noah Velazquez got the idea for the app last year after noticing that many students struggled to actually get to the dining room for meals because of health reasons and hectic schedules. At the same time, delivery via the usual suspects (Grubhub, DoorDash, etc.) is expensive.

Grubify solves both problems by offering an app that integrates with students’ existing meal plans. Students pay for meals with swipes from their dining plans, and can order from a number of campus-owned dining halls and locations. The only extra charge is a delivery fee, which is calculated based on current traffic at the dining hall and a student’s distance from the location they are ordering from. The app takes payments through platforms like Apple Pay as well as a Venmo-like system the company developed called Grubify Cash.

“The app is optimized so that orders are routed to the most convenient deliverer because of the ecosystem we’re in and our knowledge of the campus,” Velazquez told the Columbia Spectator.

To that end, the service employs current Columbia students as couriers who drop off the actual food. Couriers can accept or reject deliveries much as they would on any other food delivery app then cash out immediately after the food is dropped off to receive payment in their bank accounts.

Though its service is currently only available at Columbia right now, Grubify is actually an independent business from the university, and the founders hope to take it to other schools in future.

The company’s plans for expansion makes sense. College campuses are fertile grounds for food delivery at the moment. Snackpass, which was founded at Yale in 2017, just raised $21 million for its app. Foodservice giant Aramark, which supplies many college campuses around the U.S. acquired Good Uncle in 2019. Grubhub acquired Tapingo in 2018, and let’s not forget about the delivery bots from Starship, Kiwi, and others currently roving around many campuses now.

For its part, Grubify told the Spectator it is in talks with university foodservice providers and hopes to expand to other schools in the future. Interestingly, the next few weeks could be a real test of how in-demand an app that integrates with student dining plans could be. The NY Post reported over the weekend that Columbia is cancelling two days of classes this week due to the coronavirus outbreak. As concerns around being in large crowds of people grow, more students may be holing up in their dorm rooms and ordering meals for delivery. In which case, Grubify may see a surge in demand for its service in the very near future.


Related

College: the Next Big Frontier for Ghost Kitchens

New bits over the last couple weeks have sent my brain right back to college — specifically to the college dining hall, where myself and others (everyone) used to steal food to take back to our dorms to eat between meals. OK, I’m not sure that actually classified as stealing,…

Aramark Acquires Campus Food-Delivery Service Good Uncle

Just in time for school to start again, food services provider Aramark announced today it has acquired Good Uncle, an on-demand meal-delivery service that drops food to students at specific pickup points around college campuses. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Good Uncle launched in 2016 and has raised…

Campus Foodservice Giant Chartwells Brings Ghost Kitchens to Colleges and Universities

Chartwells Higher Education, a foodservice management company, announced today it has launched its ghost kitchen program for college and university campuses. Chartwells has already piloted the program at a handful of schools, including Seattle University, SUNY Buffalo State College, the University of Utah, the University of Texas at Dallas, and…

Get the Spoon in your inbox

Just enter your email and we’ll take care of the rest:

Find us on some of these other platforms:

  • Apple Podcasts
  • Spotify
Tagged:
  • college delivery
  • delivery
  • dining halls
  • Grubify

Post navigation

Previous Post Amazon Selling its “Just Walk Out” Cashierless Tech to Other Retailers
Next Post Uber, DoorDash and Others ‘In Talks’ to Compensate Drivers Affected By Coronavirus

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Get The Spoon in Your Inbox

The Spoon Podcast Network!

Feed your mind! Subscribe to one of our podcasts!

Is Posha the Robotic Heir to the Thermomix? The Founders Sure Hope So
From Aspiring Pro Surfer to Delivery Robot CEO with Coco’s Zach Rash
Mark Cuban to Speak at SKS 2025
This Culinary Tech Inventor Thought He Could Build Some Parts For His Latest Gadget in the US. Then He Called Around.
Thermomix Has Long Been a Leader in Cooking Automation, But Now They’re Going Full Robot

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2025 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.