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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

delivery apps

Delivery Hero Partners With World Food Programme to Integrate Donations Into Its Apps

Berlin, Germany-based Delivery Hero announced today it has partnered with the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) to integrate the latter’s ShareTheMeal program into its own delivery platforms.

WFP launched ShareTheMeal, also based in Berlin, in 2015. Anyone who downloads the app can use it to donate money that will go towards ShareTheMeal’s goal of getting 800 million meals to those in need over the next five years.

But since a growing number of folks nowadays already use delivery apps, ShareTheMeal and Delivery Hero decided to bake the donation functionality right into the delivery platform. Via an API, ShareTheMeal will be integrated into Delivery Hero’s apps. After placing an order, Delivery Hero customers will see a button that says “Donate a Meal.” Upon pressing it, they can choose from three different meal options based on how much they want to donate. The donation is tacked onto the total price at the checkout stage of the transaction.

The idea is to make the process of donating meals as easy and “seamless” as ordering delivery for oneself.

And it’s not the first time a third-party delivery services has tried donations. Uber Eats, for example, launched an in-app donation feature for restaurants early on in the pandemic. DoorDash, meanwhile, has partnerships with Copia, Replate, and other companies to divert food from landfills and redistribute it to those in need.

Delivery Hero is one of the world’s largest third-party delivery platforms outside of China, and a high-profile partnership with a UN subsidiary will hopefully translate to more meals donated around the world. To start, the ShareTheFood integration will be in Delivery Hero’s delivery platforms in Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Malaysia, Norway, Romania, and Sweden. The company says more markets will follow soon.

Thanks to This Delivery Service, You Can Now Order Food With a Magic Wand

Whether you need a simpler way to order dinner or just dream of transforming your house into Hogwarts, a new prototype from British Delivery service Just Eat seems like a promising way to order food.

The Just Eat Ordering Wand, currently in beta, is exactly what it’s name suggests: a wand-like device you can use to order food.

Users activate the 3D-printed food Wand by pressing a button and waving it. (Shouting “Accio!” as you wave the wand is optional.) The Wand uses Chirp™ soundwave technology to transmit an encrypted sound signal to the Just Eat app, triggering your most recent order. In other words, the wand talks to the app and re-orders the most recent thing you had via Just Eat.

Once payment is received, the LED tip of the Wand flashes to confirm the order has been placed. And as a guard against over-excited wand-wavers placing accidental orders, users are limited to one order per hour.

Why, you ask, is this superior to using an app? Well, if you’ve always wanted to pretend you live at Hogwarts, the answer is obvious. Aside from that, the Wand reportedly makes the food taste better by adding an element of fun to it. Just Eat enlisted the help of Oxford University food scientist Charles Spence, who referred to the product as a “mental palate cleanser” that improves your food:

“A wand has a special place in our psyche, thanks to the popularity of magic shows and Harry Potter.” he says. “It appeals to our inner child and evokes happy memories. Anything that makes your mind happier, makes your taste buds happier.”

Though right now the Wand can only re-order a user’s most-recent Just Eat order, group ordering, bill splitting, and real-time promotional offers are all future possibilities for the Wand, according to Just Eat. But seriously, if you’re either so busy (or so lazy) you need something faster than an app to help you with dinner, chances are, you’re eating the same thing for almost every night anyway.

The Wand is still in trial stage and not yet available to the public. Just Eat has said that if tests are successful, it could become available “in the near future.”

Now all we need is a One Ring beverage delivery service to go with it, and fantasy nerds everywhere will be set for life.