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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

delivery

Bringg Releases Its Delivery-Focused Software Feature BringgNow Early — and for Free

Delivery orchestration platform Bringg today announced a new product meant to help smaller restaurants, grocers, and convenience stores scale and manage their delivery operations. Called BringgNow, the product was slated for a release date later this year. In light of the surge in delivery orders as more people stay home, Bringg decided to launch the product now — and offer it to businesses for free.

Bringg is essentially a logistics platform for businesses that rely heavily on delivery orders. The Chicago-based company’s platform provides automatic driver dispatch, route optimization, real-time tracking, and reverse logistics. Arcos Dorados, Panera, Just Eat, and Walmart are among the company’s clients.

BringgNow’s features include a web dashboard that simplifies the process of creating and managing orders as well as tools that make it easier to assign deliveries to drivers and see their location in real time, manage driver fleets, and provide customers with real-time tracking of their orders. Since most smaller restaurants don’t have the means to employ their own driver fleets, the system also integrates with DoorDash and Postmates’ third-party delivery platforms. 

Quick onboarding is another feature Bringg is pushing with this release, though how long that actually takes is not quite clear. Upon submitting basic details (name, company name, phone number), users receive a message saying Bringg will be in touch with them “in the next 24 hours.”

Speed is key when it comes to delivery right now. As mentioned above, Bringg was meant to release BringgNow later this year. However, with so many businesses — particularly restaurants — now having to rely on digital ordering and delivery to even do business, the company is making the product available now, for free to new users.

They’re not the only tech company pushing new features and products at companies right now. Also this week, Presto announced it is giving away its Presto Kiosks to restaurants, and last week Sevenrooms unrolled a new feature called Direct Delivery that existing customers can add at no extra cost. Platforms like Ordermark, Chowly, and Toast are reducing or outright waiving various fees for restaurants as they look to quickly pivot to an off-premises model for the foreseeable future.

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.  

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. 

 

‘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.”

 

Video: Creator Engineered an Awesome Way to Deliver Germ-Free Burgers

COVID-19 has spawned a lot of new safety protocols in food delivery to help stem the outbreak. Grocery stores are wiping everything down more often. Delivery companies are dropping food off without human contact. But leave it to Creator, which built an entire robot to make (delicious) cheeseburgers, to take who concept of clean food to a whole new level.

During this pandemic, Creator has shifted to a delivery only model, and the company posted a video to Instagram today showing off its high-tech, highly-engineered solution for making sure the food you eat is as germ-free as possible. Creator described the new system in an email sent to us, saying:

Our engineers have worked around the clock to create a transfer chamber that protects the inside of the restaurant from outside air yet still allows us to transport completed meals, in their hermetically sealed bags, out to customers. The chamber uses a positive pressure system combined with a self-sanitizing conveyor.

In addition to this Andromeda Strain-level of prevention, Creator’s robot can also potentially help curb the spread of disease because it removes another human from the equation (though there are still humans involved in assembling your order).

Creator’s solution may seem over-the-top, but honestly, over-the-top solutions are exactly what we need right now.

Chipotle Partners with Uber Eats to Reach More Diners during COVID-19

Quarantined burrito lovers, take note. Chipotle announced today it has added Uber Eats to its list of third-party delivery partners. The chain also announced that it will waive delivery fees on orders of $10 or more placed through the Uber Eats app for the rest of March.

Chipotle is taking extra precautions to make sure anyone who orders through Uber Eats has the option to for “no-contact” deliveries. Chipotle food will have a tamper-evident packaging seal to prove that food has been untouched on its route to the customer.

This is the first time Chipotle and Uber Eats have teamed up for delivery, and the move is no doubt in response to the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the globe and keeping people home. Chipotle chain has had a partnership with DoorDash since 2018 and is also available through Postmates.

As resident restaurant tech expert Jenn Marston previously noted, delivery remains a major driver for digital growth for Chipotle. The company has a hybrid delivery strategy which uses a combo of in-house and third-party functionality to build out a unique delivery operation for each individual storefront. It’s also experimenting with Chipotlanes, which are drive-thru lanes that place special emphasis on mobile ordering.

Chipotle’s digital business surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2019 and digital orders made up one-fifth of the company’s sales in Q4 of last year. With the coronavirus outbreak spurring massive restaurant closures, it’s likely that Chipotle — and other fast-casual chains — will double down on its digital and delivery capabilities. With Uber Eats on its side, that could mean more burritos for all of us social distancing right now.

McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Other Major QSRs Suspend Dine-In Service Across the U.S.

McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A, and several other major restaurant chains have suspended dine-in service for the foreseeable future across all of their brands. The moves come as cities and states across the country are mandating restaurant closures to help slow the spread of coronavirus.

Starbucks was one of the first, announcing over the weekend it will “temporarily change” to a to-go-only model in all U.S. and Canada stores. The news was quickly followed by Atlanta-based chain Chick-fil-A saying it will completely shutter some locations while the bulk of its stores will shift to an off-premises-only model.

More have made similar moves in a very short time:

McDonald’s announced Monday that “company-owned restaurants will close seating areas, including the use of self-service beverage bars and kiosks,” and that the company will shift those stores to drive-thru, takeout, and delivery formats. The chain said it expects its franchise operators to do the same very soon.

Taco Bell has closed dining rooms at all company-owned locations. In a letter, company CEO Mark King said the chain is “equipping our restaurants to serve our guests via drive-thru and delivery only where necessary.”

Shake Shack has closed down dining rooms at all of its corporate-owned stores. Customers can still place orders at the restaurant as well as through the usual delivery channels.

Effective today, chicken-centric QSR Zaxby’s will limit service to drive-thru only. The brand is encouraging customers to use its online ordering feature to further increase social distancing and limit the amount of person-to-person contact needed when picking up food.

Today, Chipotle announced that all of its 2,600 restaurants will suspend dine-in service and will focus on takeout and delivery.

There are others: Dunkin’, Panda Express, Arby’s Sonic . . .

I could go on, but the reality is that more states will almost certainly mandate restaurant closures, and those moves will encompass all restaurants, from mom-and-pop stores to QSRs to massive chain brands like The Cheesecake Factory.

Most of these brands will offer some form of off-premises ordering to keep business going for the foreseeable future.

States Call for Restaurant Shutdowns, Businesses Switch to Delivery Models

The list of cities and states now mandating that restaurants close their dining rooms and switch to delivery- and takeout-only models continues to grow as governments and businesses work to slow the spread of coronavirus across the U.S. These moves arrive just as the CDC advises against gatherings of 50 or more for the next eight weeks.

As of Monday morning, Ohio, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Washington state have ordered bars and restaurants to close or switch to off-premises formats. New York City and Hoboken, N.J. are also requiring restaurants to shutter dining rooms, and around the country individual businesses have been voluntarily closing their establishments for the last few days. Starbucks and Chick-fil-A have moved all stores to a to-go model, Momofuku shuttered all of its locations, and Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality group closed all its restaurants. Those are just a few names on a list that will in all likelihood include most restaurants in the U.S. in the near future.

How restaurants will manage this shift and what will happen to existing staff varies city by city, restaurant by restaurant, and in some cases by restaurants within the same brand. Starbucks, for example, is currently keeping the bulk of its locations open for delivery, mobile pickup, and drive thru orders, but will completely shut stores at malls and universities and in areas with “high clusters of COVID-19 cases,” according to a letter from the company.

Celebrity chef Jose Andrés, meanwhile, said he would be closing all of his restaurants but that some of them would be transformed to community kitchens staffed by volunteers giving takeout meals to those in need. Existing employees will get paid leave in the meantime. 

Other employees are not so fortunate. Seattle chef and restauranteur Tom Douglas has closed 12 of his 13 restaurants and laid off staff, saying that he will rehire them once business reopens.

And, of course, many businesses are switching to off-premises-only models and will be able to fulfill delivery orders and in some cases those placed at the drive-thru. On the one hand, that’s a plus for existing staff, who presumably in most cases will be able to keep their jobs. However, delivery, especially via third-party apps like Grubhub and Uber Eats, remains a challenge for many businesses, especially independent ones. Commission fees these services collect per transaction are often prohibitively high for small restaurants. And with recession looming (probably already here, actually), there are questions around whether consumers will even want to pay the delivery and service fees required to get restaurant meals sent straight to their homes.

Most of the major delivery companies have responded with initiatives aimed at smaller restaurants and customers at this time. Uber Eats just announced it will waive all delivery fees for orders at independent restaurants. And last week, both Grubhub and Postmates announced they will waive commission fees for independent restaurants for the time being.

However, not all restaurants are set up for delivery, and some worry that the closing now will permanently put them out of business. One owner told the L.A. Times that his shop is not set up for delivery and that, ““The numbers really don’t make sense; that’s why we haven’t done it in the past.”

Whether delivery companies negotiate more affordable rates with new restaurant customers during this time remains to be seen. Postmates, for example, said it would waive all commission fees for independent restaurants in San Francisco that sign up with the service. Others may follow.

We’ll be updating this post regularly, so check back for more news on restaurant closures as well as how businesses, delivery companies, and customers are managing this situation.

Week in Restaurants: How Restaurants Are Responding to Coronavirus

Restaurants large and small face a major sales slump due to declining foot traffic and mandates from city governments to reduce capacity in the dining room. Meanwhile, larger chains are under pressure to provide more paid sick leave to their workers, and based on the number of businesses now focusing on to-go and delivery formats, we’re about to see a massive surge in delivery orders. Here’s what the week in restaurants and restaurant tech looked like in the wake of a pandemic.

Starbucks Considers Switching to Delivery, Takeout Format

Starbucks already temporarily suspended its reusable cup program last week. Then yesterday, in a letter to customers, company CEO Kevin Johnson wrote that the chain is considering an off-premises-only model for some stores for the time being. That would mean customers could only order via the Starbucks mobile app, and all orders would have to be for pickup, delivery, or drive-thru. Johnson said closing entire stores outright would be a last resort, and that any changes made to store formats would be decided on a “community-by-community and store-by-store” basis.

NYC Restaurants Must Reduce Capacity

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that New York City bars and restaurants must reduce capacity by 50 percent starting today at 5 p.m. Gatherings for 500 people or more have been completely banned. De Blasio said small businesses affected by this change have the option of no-interest loans to consider, and those who face eviction should check the city’s website for free legal assistance.

 

Restaurants Add Paid Sick Leave for Workers

Darden, the parent company of Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, and Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen launched a new sick leave policy this week where employees earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. The new policy applies to about 180,000 restaurant workers across Darden’s portfolio. A Darden spokesperson mentioned that this is a permanent change that has actually been in the works for some time. “We did accelerate the rollout given the current environment,” he added.

McDonald’s announced paid sick leave for up to two weeks for employees that are asked to quarantine themselves due to coronavirus. The policy applies to corporate-owned stores only. Workers are currently demanding paid sick leave for all employees across both corporate and franchise locations.

Noodles & Company is also now offering emergency pay for quarantined workers at company-owned stores. The plan is similar to McDonald’s, where hourly workers who normally do not get paid sick time will receive paid time off if they are unable to work after being diagnosed with or quarantined because of COVID019. The company is said to be working on a longer-term paid sick leave policy for employees. 

Starbucks, in addition to its moves above, is also now offering catastrophe pay to workers who have been diagnosed with or exposed to COVID-19, as well as anyone who “comes into close prolonged contact with someone in their store or household” who has the virus, according to a letter from company president Rossann Williams. These groups are eligible for up to 14 days of catastrophe pay. Additional pay replacement “may be made up to 26 weeks” if an employee is still unable to return to work.

David Chang on Restaurant Delivery “It’s Going to Decimate the Business”

Famed restauranteur and Netflix’s Ugly Delicious host David Chang was on the Bill Simmons podcast this week. And while Chang was there to promote his new book, he and Simmons actually spent a lot of time discussing food delivery and its impact on the restaurant industry.

You should listen to the entire episode, but here are a few highlights.

Chang said that the biggest story in restaurants right now is the rise of delivery. “That’s going to be the story of the next ten years,” Chang said before adding, grimly, “It’s going to decimate the business.”

Basically, as Chang pointed out, because of delivery, restaurants now aren’t just competing with other neighborhood restaurants, they are competing with restaurant across an entire city. So restaurants now find themselves in even tougher environments when it comes to standing out from competitors.

Additionally, Chang suggests the math doesn’t really add up. If a restaurant is only eking out a 5–10 percent profit overall, what happens when they pay 30 percent commissions on deliveries through a third party like DoorDash, and customers are ordering 3 – 4 meals per week through delivery? Chang worried that this could turn restaurants into a form of indentured servitude, saying “The model has to improve for actual restaurants,” and “The 30 percent fee of delivery services is a model that’s not going to work long-term.”

Having said that, Chang also admitted that if DoorDash asked to be the exclusive delivery partner for his restaurant, he’d have to say yes “because they are driving so much traffic.”

Our own Jenn Marston has written quite a bit about this Faustian bargain that restaurants strike with third-party delivery services. And how that model is starting to change as restaurants begin to bring delivery in-house or create some kind of hybrid of in-house and third-party delivery.

Chang doesn’t think that eating at a restaurant will go away entirely, “They’re just going to be a specific kind of restaurant,” he said “They’re going to be the shit you can’t deliver, ultimately.”

In a fun aside, Chang actually ranked food that’s best for delivery. Pizza was the best followed by Chinese food and fried chicken. Host Bill Simmons lamented that “they have not been able to figure out fries.” Perhaps he should check out Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase winner Soggy Food Sucks.

Chang’s opinions, of course, come during a global pandemic, where people are being encouraged to practice active social distancing and avoid large gatherings. In Jersey City, the mayor has asked bars and restaurants in that town to take attendance in an effort to minimize the impact of the coronavirus. And in Seattle, restauranteur Tom Douglas said that he is temporarily closing 12 restaurants for up to three months after seeing a 90 percent drop in business since the outbreak.

You should listen to the whole Simmons podcast. Chang is a great interview who doesn’t pull any punches. And while “decimate” is kind of a pejorative term, Chang is right, delivery will cause fundamental changes to the restaurant biz. How it does so, remains to be seen.

Students at Columbia Develop New Food Delivery App for Dining Halls

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.

Online Grocery Shopping Surges Amidst Coronavirus (So Tip Your Delivery Drivers!)

The Spoon is headquartered just outside of Seattle, and with a rise in coronavirus cases here over the weekend, things are understandably a little… tense. This tension was on full display at my local Safeway last night, where the cleaning supply and dry goods sections of the store were picked over and barren.

The rapidly spreading virus has sparked a rash of panic buying here and across the U.S. as concerned citizens stock up in the event of a societal collapse. The Washington Post writes:

Shelf-stable and frozen foods were in high demand. At a Trader Joe’s market in Mountain View, Calif., the freezer section was cleared out of pizza and most ready-made meals by Sunday evening. There was no pasta or rice left. One woman’s cart was piled to the brim with frozen mushroom ravioli. Another cart was filled with six gallons of milk.

Facing empty real world stores and an increasing fear of being in public places, there’s a surge in online shopping. According to MarketWatch:

In the past 30 days, 21% of U.S. consumers ordered perishable, edible groceries online, [NPD Groupd analyst David] Portalatin said. That’s up from 18% at the same point last year.

All this online shopping has taxed even the biggest of delivery players. Bloomberg reports that Amazon’s Fresh and Prime Now delivery services have been overwhelmed, and yesterday Amazon said delivery from both of those services would be impacted as it strains to meet up with demand.

As people find comfort in shopping from home, however, it’s important to remember that human beings are still making those deliveries. The Seattle Times notes that the boon in shopping means drivers can make more money, but they are definitely putting themselves at risk:

Some drivers have begun using hand sanitizer before and after ID checks, while some customers are applying disinfectant to grocery bags, said the gig-economy driver, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from the companies.

Faced with an amorphous, invisible threat that does not discriminate, could literally be anywhere, and will only get worse, our current delivery and logistical systems are going to be pushed to their limits. But as we’ve noted before, this outbreak could also help push forward technological solutions that require less human-to-human contact.

Robots like those from Starship could be an easy humanless way to deliver meals and medicines around the clock in densely populated areas (they’d still need to be sterilized). And self-driving delivery vans like those from Udelv could bring people bulkier items like groceries.

That’s still a ways off, especially since we haven’t had to lockdown any U.S. metropolitan areas (thankfully) yet, and the safety tradeoffs of autonomous vehicles must still be considered. So for now we’re still reliant on humans to make our deliveries. Those delivery drivers aren’t just bringing packages, they are serving as a lifeline to the food we need to eat. If you need to panic grocery shop to feel better, we can’t stop you. Just be sure you tip your delivery driver generously.