Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

delivery

Swiggy, Zomato Expand Delivery Services to Groceries and Beyond in India

Swiggy, one of India’s biggest food delivery services, announced this week it has raised $43 million as part of its ongoing Series I round. The round was led by existing investor Tencent, and new investors Ark Impact, Korea Investment Partners, Samsung Ventures and Mirae Asset Capital Markets. it brings Swiggy’s total funding to date to $1.42 billion and values the company at $3.6 billion, according to TechCrunch.

The round is also part of Swiggy’s ongoing efforts to expand its business from restaurant food delivery to include other items, including grocery, laundry, and other household items. The company says it will use the new funds to address market gaps in those areas.

Pre-pandemic, Swiggy was already headed in this direction. Two services, Swiggy Stores and Swiggy Go, launched in 2019 to deliver grocery, medicine, house keys, and many other items to customers within a one-hour timeframe.

With cases of COVID-19 on the rise worldwide, the company isn’t alone in branching out from restaurant meals — more services that traditionally peddled only restaurant food are widening the range of products they can deliver. DoorDash recently expanded its food delivery capabilities to include convenience-store items from 7-11, Wawa, and other such places. Postmates has a delivery partnership with Walgreens through which customers can get wellness products, medicines, and general household items. 

Those examples are in the U.S., though. In India, expanding into new delivery categories could give Swiggy a competitive edge at a time when the entire country is on lockdown and most business is disrupted. However, Swiggy’s biggest competitor, Zomato, has also gotten hip to the potential profitability of delivering more than just restaurant meals. The service just announced Zomato Market, which identifies nearby grocery stores delivering goods and delivers items.

Zomato also bought Uber Eats’ business in India earlier this year, creating a two-man race in the India food delivery market. With 1.3 billion people in the country on lockdown right now, there are plenty of customers to go around. Post-pandemic, whenever that is, the market may become more of a race to see which service can better prove profitability.

COVID-19 Summit: How to Get Up, Running, and Efficient With Restaurant Delivery/Takeout

At today’s jam-packed yet socially distanced COVID-19 summit, we’ve been exploring the different strategies food businesses can take to survive the sudden changes brought about by coronavirus, a stopped economy, and massive disruptions to daily life. And no other sector in food has been hit harder than the restaurant industry, thanks to mandatory state closures of dining rooms that are forcing businesses to reach for off-premises ordering formats as a lifeline or die trying. 

So how exactly to you grasp that lifeline to keep your business from going under? Today, The Spoon’s Managing Editor Chris Albrecht talked with Sterling Douglass, co-founder and CEO of POS integrator Chowly to find out. Chowly’s platform simplifies (and automates) the process of a restaurant taking orders from multiple sales channels, so Douglass knows a thing or two about restaurants and off-premises orders. Here, I’ve broken his advice down into three different steps restaurants can take in order to get up and running faster and more efficiently with their own off-premises strategies. 

The Spoon's COVID-19 Summit: Sterling Douglas & Building an Off-Premise Business

1. Prepare your staff.

Douglass mentioned that Chowly is currently working with a lot of restaurants that are implementing delivery and takeout strategies for the very first time. And the very first thing he tells them has nothing to do with software or delivery services. Rather, he recommends restaurants examine and prepare their staff for the changes necessary to operate right now.

Consider what roles your workers will play now that there is no more dining room? That doesn’t change much for those in back of house, but what about servers? Can you afford to keep them and, if so, how can they be used to help the off-premises business along?

One thing that changes for everyone is scheduling. Right now, for example, many workers have children at home because of school closures. A workers’ normal schedule might need to be adjusted. Restaurants need to work with their staff to try and accommodate the different situations brought on by social distancing and shelter in place orders. 

2. Get set up with delivery companies. All of them.

Setting up a delivery program isn’t simply a matter of plugging DoorDash into your POS and getting some takeout boxes. Accounts with third-party delivery platforms can, especially now, take weeks to set up — a hardly ideal scenario right now. Chowly, along with other integration companies like Ordermark and Olo, compress a lot of this timeframe so that restaurants don’t have to go through the set of moves for each different delivery partner.

Those decisions include which platforms to work with (all of them, for now), how they want to be integrated (tablets versus the pricier but more efficient direct POS integration), and, once up and running, what food they’ll serve.

There’s also menu pricing to consider. Right now, independent restaurants and smaller chains without the deep pockets of, say, Starbucks, don’t get much negotiating power when it comes to commission fees they must pay delivery aggregators. Douglass suggested in the session that higher priced items on third-party marketplaces. That puts the burden on consumers, which could be risky in a recession-bound economy but does shift some of the financial stress off the shoulders of restaurants themselves.

Unless you also run your own driver fleet, the process for setting up delivery and takeout is fairly similar. Douglass said Chowly encourages potential customers to do both.

3. Get virtual.

Virtual restaurants have gotten more popular and more numerous over the last year. Imagine al of the above steps — delivery integration, a smiple menu, etc.—applied to a restaurant concept that doesn’t have a dining room and relies on delivery and takeout to reach customers. 

In today’s session, Douglass pointed out a few such concepts, most notably those Grubhub has been doing with restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You and non-restaurant food brands like Bon Apétit and Whole30. The rise of ghost kitchens has also led to many more virtual restaurants, and even virtual restaurant networks like Keatz.

This is not a step most restaurants are even in a position to consider right now. But it doesn’t but it doesn’t hurt to think about long term strategies, particularly since we don’t yet know what the restaurant industry is going to look like when we all finally emerge from our houses again. Right now, getting your operations ready for delivery and takeout and getting on delivery platforms should be the number one priorities for restaurants for the foreseeable future.

NPD Group: Restaurant Customer Transactions Are Down 42 Percent

Restaurant customer transactions dropped 42 percent during the week ending in March 29 compared to the same time period one year ago, according to new numbers from The NPD Group. 

While dismal, to say the least, those numbers aren’t surprising. With most states now mandating restaurants keep dining rooms closed for the foreseeable future, many businesses have lost their primary sales channel. Full-service and casual dining restaurants (think Olive Garden or your local Mexican restaurant) that still rely on foot traffic for the majority of their sales are having to quickly pivot to off-premises models that offer delivery and takeout orders. Restaurants designed for an in-dining room experience are having trouble making this transition smoothly and quickly.

Reflecting that issue, NPD notes that while QSRs (e.g., Wendy’s) saw a transaction decline of 40 percent, full-service restaurants shouldered the burden of a much larger drop, at 79 percent.

“The transaction declines partially reflect the struggle of on-premise restaurants to pivot to off-premise models,” NPD industry advisor David Portalatin said in a statement. “Many restaurants that are attempting to make the move are doing so with limited menu offerings and without the benefit of drive-thru lanes. Anecdotally, some operators are giving up the cause and closing altogether.”

Some of those closures are temporary; others, sadly not. Recent numbers from The National Restaurant Association show that 3 percent of restaurants have closed permanently and another 11 percent are expected to this month.  

Some restaurant-tech companies, like Allset and Presto, have shifted their focus to providing products and services that could make to-go operations more efficient. Others, like Ordermark and Chowly, are waiving certain fees for restaurants that want to get quickly up and running with delivery. Meanwhile, a number of charities, fundraisers, and other initiatives are working to provide relief to impacted businesses and their workers.

It’s too soon to tell how effective any one of these solutions is in terms of saving more businesses in the long term. Given that major restaurant chains as well as the smaller businesses are now struggling financially, even cautious optimism feels naive right now.

For us average consumers who can afford it, the best course of action right now is to keep ordering takeout from local restaurants and contributing to relief funds, virtual tip jars, and other online initiatives. Soon enough, the numbers will tell us if these moves can make a big enough difference.

Newsletter: How to Support Restaurants Right Now Without Endangering Everyone’s Health

To do my bit in supporting restaurants right now, I’ve been ordering from them once every few days for the last couple weeks. More times than not, it’s been a logistical circus that winds up costing a lot of money and, especially lately, unnecessarily putting workers’ health at risk.

Case in point: Tuesday night I ordered online from a local burger place. While the system gave me a “curbside pickup” option, there was no curbside at which to actually park once I arrived at the restaurant. Rather, I joined a crowd of other people clustered in front of the restaurant. A lone worker frantically ran in and out of the restaurant calling names as she tried to determine which order belonged to which customer. No one wore gloves and no one was standing six feet apart.

The inconvenience of the experience is the least problematic part of this example. Far more unsettling are the financial and health risks of running an off-premises business when you’re not an off-premises restaurant. Through no fault of its own, that burger place is not equipped to efficiently manage the volume and logistics of a curbside business. It’s never had to until now.

Restaurant owners and industry folks have long argued that the dine-in experience differs greatly from a to-go operation, and that one can’t simply flip a switch and be asked to transition from one to the next without a hitch. And yet that’s exactly what thousands of restaurants across the country are at this moment being forced to do. And what you get is a scene like the other night, where there isn’t enough staff to even pick up the phone, let alone manage the influx of orders going out and customers waiting. Staffers are interacting with way too many people than could possibly be safe, and everyone’s health is at risk. There’s also evidence that an off-premises strategy isn’t even financially fruitful for many restaurants.

Is it really worth it or is there another way to support restaurants that desperately need a lifeline as dining shutdowns and COVID-19 ravage the industry?

The answer, fortunately, is “yes.” Shortly after states began mandating dining room closures, charities and funds began popping up online. Last week I wrote about virtual tip jars for servers and bartenders out of work right now. And some of these funds go directly to restaurants themselves.

The James Beard Foundation has launched a Food and Beverage Industry Relief Fund that accepts donations from corporations, foundations, and individuals to provide micro-grants to independent food and beverage businesses.

Dining bonds and gift cards are another route. The Dining Bonds campaign was started by a group of industry professionals to get immediate relief funds to restaurants. It works like a savings bond: guests purchase a bond at today’s value rate and can redeem it for full face value at a later date. Support Local lets you purchase restaurant gift cards from independent businesses in a number of cities. They can be redeemed now or, if you’re not feeling up for off-premises, later on, when dining rooms open again.

Initiatives like these aren’t a magic bullet. But they do provide some other avenues for supporting restaurants, whether you’re trying to avoid other people or just looking for a way to give a little extra help.

Running a Restaurant? We Want to Hear From You

If you’re reading this and also happen to be a restaurant owner, operator, or worker, help The Spoon help you. We’re currently collecting stories, tips, and ideas about what it’s like to actually live and work in the restaurant biz during this strange, unsettling time.

That includes anything from new strategies to make delivery and takeout more efficient to how you’re keeping yourself and your workers safe. And, this being The Spoon, any stories of how you’re using tech to help cope with this situation are most welcome. But before the tech comes the people, which is why your voice is the most important piece of our ongoing coverage and narrative.

Drop us a line a tips@thespoon.tech or DM me via Twitter.

It’s Almost Here: The COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit

If you’re a restaurant, food business, or food tech company, join us next week for a virtual summit on how to do business in the age of coronavirus.

On Monday, April 6 The Spoon will host the COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit for Food and Restaurants. No travel required to get there and 100 percent socially distant, this online summit will features talks and fireside chats from leading experts including:

  • Chef Mark Brand – Founder of Save-On Meats and creator of the Token Program to feed those in food insecure situations
  • Caesare Assad – CEO of FS6
  • Sara Roversi– Founder of the Future Food Institute
  • Dana Gunders – Executive Director of ReFED
  • Phil Lempert – the SuperMarket Guru
  • Paul Freedman – Professor of History 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

Register today.

Keep on truckin’,

Jenn

Sweetgreen, Taco Bell Using Their Off-Premises Muscle to Feed Hospital Workers Fighting COVID-19

Sweetgreen today announced the launch of its Sweetgreen Impact Outpost Fund, a partnership with José Andrés’ World Kitchen Center (WCK) that aims to get more food to front-line medical workers in hospitals, according to a company press release. 

The new fund comes just on the heels of Sweetgreen’s Impact Outpost program, which launched two weeks ago to get free Sweetgreen meals to hospital workers and medical personnel. Outpost is Sweetgreen’s delivery-catering hybrid service that operates portable drop-off sites for deliveries. Up to now, Outpost has been seen more commonly in corporate offices.

The Impact Outpost program places these drop-off stations in hospitals. After launching the program, Sweetgreen received a ton of feedback from both large corporations and individual customers wanting to support it through donations. The new partnership with Andrés’ non-profit is a way to provide this as well as increase the number of hospitals receiving meals from Sweetgreen.

From the press release:

“Through the fund, corporations, sponsors and customers are able to join sweetgreen and WCK’s efforts to feed more front-line medical personnel working in hospitals, while also helping fund new Outposts in relief sites, including schools, senior centers and in vulnerable and high-risk communities.”

You can donate directly to on the fund’s website, and even make a donation in memory or honor of someone. The site notes that this fund will remain open “for as long as needed,” and that right now, the goal is to deliver at least 100,000 meals to workers. 

Sweetgreen is one of several notable restaurant brands now using their established off-premises platforms to deliver food to frontline workers. Also this week, Just Salad announced a partnership with Mount Sinai to deliver 10,000 meals per week across seven hospitals in NYC boroughs Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.

Taco Bell has turned its Taco Trucks, which are food truck versions of the QSR, into mobile commissary kitchens that bring food to frontline workers. “While most of our restaurants are operating only through the drive-thru, this leaves some truck and ambulance drivers unable to quickly order from us,” company CEO Mark King said in a letter. He added that the chain is working with its franchisees to make this service available “where possible.”

Finally, Chipotle, another QSR with a booming digital business, is giving away free burrito boxes to healthcare facilities. The boxes come with 25–50 burritos, depending on how many are needed, and will be delivered between April 6 and April 10. DoorDash, with whom Chipotle has an ongoing delivery partnership, will handle the last-mile fulfillment of the orders.

There are bound to be plenty more restaurant brands using their existing digital and delivery strategies to more easily and efficiently get meals to workers while the pandemic lasts. And judging from the latest news, that could be a while. Stay tuned.

Walgreens and Postmates Expanding Delivery to 7,000 Stores

In response to a nation increasingly sheltering in place and socially distant, Walgreens announced this week that it is expanding its delivery program with Postmates to 7,000 stores nationwide.

To access delivery from Walgreens, customers just need to download the Postmates app. From there, they can shop for health and wellness items, including over-the-counter medications, and have them delivered via no-contact to their homes.

Today’s news is the latest in a string of announcements illustrating how traditional food delivery companies are broadening their services to meet the demands of both businesses and consumers.

Yesterday, Uber Eats announced a number of delivery partnerships with convenience stores in France, Spain and Brazil. Also yesterday, DoorDash announced a new Convenience category to deliver food and more from conveniences stores like 7-Eleven, Wawa and Circle K.

These expansions should ideally be a win/win/win scenario. Third party delivery companies can expand their market share into new verticals, a necessity given how many restaurants, their primary business right now, are shutting down. Businesses can help make up lost revenue from depressed in-store traffic resulting from social distancing by offering delivery. And consumers that still need items can get them while remaining socially distant.

The Walgreens expansion also reinforces how important delivery people are in this time of outbreak. They are risking their own health to bring us food and other essentials. Postmates currently classifies its workers as contractors, which makes them ineligible for things like health insurance and sick leave.

That may be changing though. Earlier this week, my colleague Jenn Marston reported that a New York federal judge ruled that “Postmates couriers are employees and therefore eligible for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The one constant in this coronvirus world is change. We are watching in real-time as the food world is upended. Now we just have to see how many of these changes, like nationwide delivery from drug stores, will last once the pandemic subsides.

DoorDash Launches Convenience Store Delivery with 7-Eleven, Circle K, Wawa and More

DoorDash announced today that it is expanding its food delivery operations into the convenience store category. The delivery service has partnered with regional and national convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, Wawa, Casey’s General Store, and CircleK to drop off items like sodas, snacks and over-the-counter medicine at your door (with no human-to-human contact, of course).

DoorDash didn’t say specifically where in the U.S. its new convenience delivery is available, only that it added more than 1,800 stores to its platform. Where available, DoorDash users will see a “Convenience” icon or banner in the app. Upon clicking that banner, you can shop for the packaged goods you’d normally buy at a convenience store.

In a corporate blog post announcing the new service category, DoorDash’s Head of Grocery Partnerships, Mike Goldblatt, and Fuad Hannon, the company’s Head of New Business Verticals, wrote that DoorDash piloted the service earlier this year but has accelerated its official launch to accommodate needs “during a time when delivery and pickup are vital to consumers’ wellbeing and to the health of our local communities.” See also: global pandemic upending pretty much every aspect of our everyday lives and every previous business plan for startups.

DoorDash Convenience in action

Another good reason for DoorDash to expand its service categories is that its main clientele, the restaurant industry, is in the midst of an unprecedented collapse. Social distancing has forced the closure of restaurant dining rooms across the country. While some are pivoting to delivery only, the economics of restaurants relying on third-party delivery services like DoorDash remains to be seen.

Coincidentally, DoorDash’s announcement comes on the same day that Uber Eats announced it was expanding into more grocery delivery via convenience stores in France, Spain and Portugal.

Providing groceries via convenience stores make a lot of sense for third-party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats. They can fulfill quick-hit food needs that aren’t full-on supermarket shopping trips. This not only allows for faster and therefore more deliveries (and more revenue), it also doesn’t turn delivery people into grocery shoppers wandering around a giant supermarket, hand-selecting produce, chips, etc.

Of course, at a time when delivery services grocery stores and through Instacart are being slammed with new users, having this type of quick hit delivery for small things could relieve some pressure and provide relief for those stuck at home.

The coronavirus outbreak is accelerating a lot of changes to food tech businesses. DoorDash’s expansion into convenience stores is just among the many we’ll be seeing as this pandemic continues.

#TheGreatAmericanTakeout Launches ‘Back for Seconds’ Campaign

Restaurants once again have the opportunity to push their off-premises offerings on social media via TheGreatAmericanTakeout, an awareness campaign organized by Los Angeles-based ad agency High Wide & Handsome and a coalition of restaurant brands including California Pizza Kitchen, Panera, The Habit Restaurants, Inc., Torchy’s Tacos, and many others. Today, U.S. consumers are encouraged to place at least one delivery or pickup order with a participating restaurant as a way of showing support to businesses.

The idea behind the campaign, which started last week, is to use social media to drum up more awareness around how badly restaurants are struggling as states mandate dining room closures to help slow the spread of COVID-19. 

“This is no longer about the survival of individual restaurants,” Russ Bendel, Habit Restaurants CEO, said in a statement about the original campaign last week. “It’s about the future of our industry. And time has run out. Together, we must act to support each other and our communities in unprecedented ways.”

Last week’s online event gave restaurant sales a much-needed boost, if only for a day, while #TheGreatAmericanTakeout was a trending topic on Twitter for much of the day.

Organizers said they would be pushing the campaign again this week and in subsequent weeks.

Whether that’s enough to measurably help restaurants while dining rooms remain closed will depend on how much consumers can be inspired to act when it comes to ordering meals. It’s one thing to generate likes and tweets on social media. Getting consumers to consistently spend on restaurant food each week at a time when layoffs are happening and we’re racing towards a recession might be difficult — though people with enough disposable income to afford said meals should definitely participate. There is also the question of how long the allure of the campaign will hold up over several weeks’ time. Participating restaurants could aid this by offering more incentives for takeout orders in the form of promotions (e.g., free dessert).

Takeout, in particular, is helpful to restaurants right now because they pay a much smaller commission fee (or none at all) per order, unlike delivery orders, where businesses often own third parties 30 percent of each transaction. And as one restaurant chain founder told me recently, it’s also a way for customers to tip the staff making the food, not just the folks driving it to your door.

Customers who order restaurant takeout or delivery today are encouraged to snap a picture of their meal and post it with #thegreatamericantakeout. More details can be found here.  

Survey: 3% of Restaurants Are Permanently Closed. More Will Follow

The National Restaurant Association this week released some rather gloomy statistics around COVID-19’s impact on restaurants so far. A survey of more than 4,000 U.S. restaurant owners and operators found that 3 percent have already permanently closed their restaurants, while another 11 percent say they anticipate doing so within the next 30 days.

Those that have remained open (at least for off-premises orders) have also had to make adjustments. Besides the switch to delivery and takeout orders, restaurants have also had to reduce staff as well as cut back their operating hours.

On that note, even mega-chains have not been immune. This week alone, The Cheesecake Factory furloughed 41,000 employees and is in talks about possibly deferring and/or adjusting its rent. Yum Brands, which owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC, has outright closed 7,000 restaurants around the world, which affects hundreds of jobs. McDonald’s completely shuttered operations in the U.K., and has reduced hours (and menu items) in the U.S. 

According to The Association, roughly half of restaurant owners/operators “anticipate more layoffs and hourly reductions over the next 30 days.”

This infographic, also from The Association, breaks down the situation and its unsettling numbers pretty clearly. Notably, it states that “Restaurants can’t just switch their operations over to takeout and delivery and be fine. This is not an option for everyone in our industry.” And indeed, only 54 percent of operators/owners surveyed by The Association have changed their business model to off-premises for the time being.

Unlike QSRs, which typically offer food that travels well and was designed to eat quickly, many restaurants specialize in meals meant to be eaten in the dining room. It’s not a matter of simply throwing existing dishes in a box, and part of developing an off-premises-only model involves adjusting the menu. More items that travel well and family-style options are popular recommendations for restaurants.

Even so, doing delivery is expensive. Industry figures are telling businesses to join as many third-party platforms as they can right now — no small feat when you consider the exorbitant commission fees. Some companies, which are essentially third-party aggregators for third-party delivery platforms, can speed that process up by handling the bulk of the work. They do not necessarily guarantee better commission rates for restaurants, though.  

All of which is to say, unfortunately, we can expect the number of employee layoffs and furloughs, shuttered operations, and reduced hours to keep going up, at least in the very near future. The $2 trillion stimulus package that was passed this week will offer some relief for restaurants. The bleak reality is that it probably won’t entirely stop the bleeding.

COVID is Migrating All My Food and Beverage Shopping to Online Mail Order Boxes

We’re all waiting to see what permanent changes the COVID-19 pandemic will bring about in our daily lives (handshakes, hugs, etc.). At least in the Albrecht house, after the worst of it subsides, regular, in-person trips to the grocery store may be a thing of the past.

Even before our home state of Washington was given a shelter-in-place order, we were pretty hardcore about our social distancing. I tried various online grocery shopping methods (to varying degrees of success), and have only been to the supermarket once because we ran out of milk (and even that trip out was filled with gloves and hand sanitizer).

Given that we don’t know how long this social distancing will last, this past week I explored all the online ways I could find to replace old habits. With the goal of maximizing social distancing and minimizing human contact, here’s what I signed up for.

  • CrowdCow for proteins. I also looked at ButcherBox, but it wouldn’t ship until the end of April. CrowdCow will deliver this weekend. (Sidenote: I can’t wait till someone creates an alternative protein box subscription so I can subscribe to Beyond and Impossible plant-based meat.)
  • Full Circle for fruit and veggies. I haven’t received a box yet, so I’m concerned about what will actually be in there (i.e., month after month of eggplant), but it has the bonus of also supporting farmers.
  • Smith Brothers for milk, egg, yogurt and other staples.
  • Amazon Subscribe and Save for my morning tea, and I’m considering one of the coffee subscriptions Catherine wrote about to keep whole beans coming to the house (and maybe some sort of booze club, depending on how long we’re all cooped up).
  • And I’ll still use Walmart online for curbside pickup of last minute items or cleaning supplies.

What’s missing from this list is meal kits, which are also seeing a bit of COVID-induced resurgence. I dabbled in meal kits a bunch of years back when Blue Apron was first coming on the scene. I didn’t like all the work it took then and I’m not thrilled about the prospect now, so I’m skipping those altogether.

All these mail order boxes aren’t just about replacing trips to the grocery store. They also help maintain a pipeline of food in the house. Knowing that each week/month a box will arrive with what we need gives me one less thing to worry about in a world filled with plenty of other things to worry about. (Granted, society could break down altogether, but I can cross that bridge when I get to it.)

Ordering food online by subscription isn’t new or rocket science, and perhaps I’m overreacting to any potential dangers lurking at the supermarket. But some of these services are ones I’ve been eyeing for awhile; the coronavirus just nudged me into action. For instance, we still eat meat, and it will feel better to patronize smaller farms via CrowdCow. Same for the fruits and veggies.

Will my subscriptions to these boxes stick around once the outbreak abates? Who knows! At that point I’ll just be thankful there’s a world to emerge out into.

Report: Sales From Third-Party Delivery Apps Are Slowing. Might It Be Those Fees?

Despite dining rooms being closed and delivery being one of the few sales channels on which restaurants can rely, the numbers are down as far as third-party platforms like Grubhub and DoorDash are concerned. Data from Earnest Research shows that these platforms are “declining in growth,” according to an article today on Nation’s Restaurant News.

Earnest Research analyzes credit and debit card purchases. Its findings, which end with numbers from March 18, show that instead of ordering more restaurant delivery, consumers are instead spending their money on grocery store purchases.

From NRN:

Earnest Research recorded national restaurant spend down 17% year-over-year for the week ending March 18, specifically driven by declines in QSR (-12% YoY), fast-casual (-24% YoY), and casual dining (-34% YoY). Spend with delivery aggregators (how Earnest defines third-party marketplaces and delivery app services) decelerated to +11% YoY from mid-twenty percent growth year-to-date.

Brick-and-mortar grocery stores, on the other hand, saw a 79 percent year-over-year growth, while online grocery orders were up 66 percent year over year. “This suggests a shift in shopper behavior as customers are trying online grocery for the first time, increasing their frequency, or both,” the report notes.

You can hardly blame consumers for wanting to spend their money on grocery items that can stretch across multiple meals. I, too, had a recent experience that really underscored how expensive restaurant food delivery actually is. Over the weekend, I ordered a $20 pizza from a local place here in Nashville. The shop only delivers through Postmates, and between delivery fees, service fees, and a tip, I dropped about $38 for that pizza. (Part of that did go towards a larger-than-normal tip.) Fast-forward to yesterday when I swooped into a grocery store to pick up enough for a few meals plus a week’s worth’ of oat milk. The goods cost about $30 total.

Many more are probably making similar comparisons right now. More than 3 million people filed for unemployment benefits in the last week, and that number could rise. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said today that we “may well be in a recession” and that economic activity will substantially decline from April to June.

All of which is to say, this isn’t exactly the climate in which to regularly cough up $10-plus in fees on delivery orders, which makes it not all that surprising that numbers are down for delivery platforms. 

It’s a bummer, to be sure. In an ideal world, everyone would have the funds to support local restaurants and regularly purchase delivery and takeout meals from them while COVID-19 has us all on lockdown. It’s unrealistic to expect the majority of Americans to do this, though.

Some restaurant chains have gotten hip to the issue of high delivery fees. Subway, McDonald’s, Del Taco, Chipotle, KFC, Taco Bell, and others have all announced free delivery promotions through some of their third-party partners. Still, even with waived fees, for most of us, our money goes a lot farther when we’re spending it at Publix.

Another week or two of lockdown should tell us if such deals are enough to reverse the declining numbers for third-party delivery platforms. With no seeming end in sight to either the pandemic or the economic roller coaster we’re currently on, more people willing to spend their bucks on delivery is far from guaranteed.

These Coffee Bean Delivery Sites Will Help You Get Your Java Fix During Quarantine

Maybe you used to get your coffee at work. Or at a local café on your way into the office. Now that we’re supposed to be working (and staying) at home, how do you get your daily java fix?

Of course, there are plenty of coffee brewing devices out there, ranging from the simple to the high-tech and complex. No doubt you already have at least one kicking around your home.

But one crucial aspect for your home coffee routine that you will need to keep purchasing, quarantine or no, is the beans themselves. Sure, you could pick some up from your local grocery store, provided you’re comfortable doing that and don’t mind picking from whatever’s left on the shelves. Or order your beans via Instacart.

However, for those who seek a more adventurous rotation of beans — or can’t find artisanal beans at their local stores — there are plenty of delivery services happy to help you out. Here’s a list of coffee bean delivery sites that will mail curated packages of beans right to your door.

Photo: Crema
  • Mistobox can mail you over 500 coffee bean blends sourced from more than 50 roasters. Fill out a short survey and the service will suggest specific beans for you, or you can choose your own. Subscriptions to Mistobox start at $10.95 a month and can be delivered every one, two, three, or four weeks.
  • Trade Coffee asks you to complete a short quiz then recommends beans specialized to your tastes. You can either purchase the coffee through Trade or sign up for a subscription service to deliver beans ever one, two, or three weeks. Bonus: Right now Trade will donate $2 from every first purchase to support roaster employees. You can also leave tips for employees directly through their GoFundMe page.
  • Atlas Coffee Club is for java drinkers that want to take a (virtual) tour around the world — something that might be extra appealing now that we’re all stuck at home. Members of their coffee of the month club receive monthly shipments of beans, each sourced from a particular country. You can also buy beans directly on their site.
  • Passion House Coffee is a good option for coffee snobs (hi, it’s me!), especially if they’re having a hard time finding artisanal beans as coffee shops shut their doors. The company roasts each bag of beans themselves so they have absolute control over flavor and freshness. Bonus: They also deliver cans of cold brew!
  • Crema offers a short survey to guide you to a list of coffee beans, sourced from over 40 roasters, tailored to your taste and brew method. Coffees can be shipped every couple of days, weeks, or monthly. You can also buy 5-pound bags of beans if you’re going through a lot right now. Bonus: In response to COVID-19, Crema is currently knocking $1 off of every bag of coffee.
  • Counter Culture Coffee offers bags of beans available for individual purchase or subscription. It’s a single roaster, so you can get direct information about the source and processing of each roast and blend. You can also buy 5-pound bags if you want to stock up.
  • Just Coffee is a good option if you’re trying to prioritize ethical sourcing right now. The company is super transparent about their farmers and the environmental impact of each bag of coffee. You can buy single bags or sign up for a subscription.
  • If you have a favorite local roaster, you can also head directly to their website to see if they ship (they probably do). Support local!

It’s not much, but during this time when everything seems uncertain and like kind of a bummer, it’s nice to know you can count on getting something you love and rely on — like coffee beans — delivered right to you. Sometimes it’s the small things, you know?