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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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The Week in Restaurant Tech: It Was Mostly About McDonald’s

McDonald’s grabbed multiple headlines this week, and honestly if the chain keeps adding tech-forward initiatives at its current hell-bent pace, I’m gonna have to rename this column “The Week in McDonald’s Tech.”

As we covered earlier in the week, the company broke its longstanding silence on plant-based burgers by announcing the soon-to-launch P.L.T. (“plant,” “lettuce,” “tomato”) sandwich for menus in Canada.

But the possibly ill-named patty wasn’t the only bit of news to come out of the mega-chain’s headquarters. Lately McDonald’s seems to be taking a page from Domino’s playbook; which is to say, the chain is fast becoming as known for its tech initiatives as it is for its burgers.

Image via McDonald’s.

“Alexa, Get Me a McDonald’s Job” Is Now a Thing
This week, McDonald’s also announced it is working with Alexa to let potential new hires apply through a voice-initiated application process. Dubbed “McDonald’s Apply Thru,” the skill works on both Alexa- and Google Assistant-enabled devices. Users can simply say, “Alexa, help get me a job at McDonald’s” (or the Google equivalent of that statement) and answer a few basic questions via voice before getting sent a link to complete the application process.

It’s a neat trick . . . I guess. But you have to wonder if bolting voice capability to the front of the application procedure will actually make getting a job at McDonald’s faster and easier, or if it’s just tech for the sake of tech. Obviously it’s early days for these kinds of voice-activated initiatives. It’s not, as Restaurant Dive pointed out, a totally seamless process yet. McDonald’s will need to refine it if it wants to make the voice-enabled application process a long-term facet of its hiring process.

More Tension With McDonald’s Franchisees
But not everyone in McDonaldsland is thrilled about tech for the sake of tech, or the pace at which McDonald’s is aiming to overhaul its locations, of which there are more than 37,000 worldwide. This week, a Bloomberg article delved partly into some of the concerns and frustrations franchises face as its McBoss continues to mandate various tech initiatives.

You should read the full article, which is a fascinating look at how CEO Steve Easterbrook turned the company’s lagging sales around with tech. But franchisees are balking at the expectations around revamping their stores for this “Experience of the Future.” As Bloomberg noted, “They object to the enormous costs of the project, which, for owners of several locations, can run into tens of millions of dollars, even with McDonald’s offering to subsidize 55 percent of the capital for the remodels.”

This is not a new story. Friction between HQ and franchisees has been steadily growing for a while now. And with AI in drive-thrus and voice-recognition now part of the McDonald’s tech tool box, in all likelihood, the McSaga will get more intense in the coming months.

DoorDash Data Breach
DoorDash said in a blog post on Thursday that 4.9 million customers, merchants, and drivers had their information stolen by hackers. That includes names, email addresses, delivery addresses, passwords and, for some, the last four digits of their credit cards. DoorDash pointed out, in bold-faced type, that full payment info was not accessed and that “the information accessed is not sufficient to make fraudulent charges on your payment card.” The breach happened all the way back on May 4, 2019. DoorDash said customers, merchants and Dashers who joined after April 5, 2018 are not affected.

New Deals in Third-Party Delivery
Not that a hack enough to slow down the growth of restaurant delivery via third parties. This week, a few more chains announced deals with various delivery services. Postmates added two new partners, O’Charley’s and restaurant company Kahala Brands, who owns chains like Pinkberry and Blimpie. Meanwhile, Sweetgreen struck an exclusive deal with Uber Eats. That’s a win for the latter, who took a bit of a blow earlier this year when its exclusive contract ended with, yup, you guessed it, McDonald’s.

If you’re still reading and want to learn more about restaurant tech, join us in Seattle on Oct 7–8 for The Spoon’s annual Smart Kitchen Summit. Grab tickets here.

Outback Steakhouse Creates a Hybrid Delivery Strategy With Exclusive DoorDash Partnership

Restaurant company Bloomin’ Brands announced this week that its Outback Steakhouse brand has partnered with DoorDash for an exclusive delivery program. Not only does the deal make Outback the largest steakhouse available via the DoorDash platform, it also puts the chain on a growing list of restaurants applying a more hybrid approach to delivery, one that utilizes a combination of third-party services and in-house capabilities.

Bloomin’ has actually spent the last couple of years developing an in-house delivery program used by both Outback and another of its brands, Carrabba’s. With this program, customers place orders directly via the Outback or Carrabba’s apps and the company handles its own drivers to transport the food from the restaurant to the customer’s doorstep.

But on the company’s recent Q2 earnings call, Bloomin’ CEO Dave Deno noted that, “We recently came to terms of the national third-party delivery provider. This channel will complement our existing platform. Importantly this will help expand our reach to customers who are loyal to the third-party delivery companies.” 

It’s not a surprising conclusion for a company to draw, given that third-party delivery apps like those from DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats are expected to have upwards of 44 million users by 2020 in the U.S. alone.

The DoorDash partnership will act to complement, rather than replace, Bloomin’s existing in-house program. It also makes Outback and Bloomin’ the latest in a series of restaurant companies adopting a hybrid approach to delivery, where incoming orders come from both the restaurant’s in-house app as well as those of third-party delivery services. Panera, one of the most well-known chains to keep delivery operations in house, announced in August it was adding multiple third-party partners to its strategy.

For Outback, the move to add third-party delivery is also in keeping with a trend highlighted in another report, Toast’s recent Restaurant Success in 2029 survey. That report noted the amount of variety today’s restaurant customers look for in terms of delivery options, and suggested large restaurant chains use a combination of both in-house functionality and third-party delivery apps.

However, the Toast report also said it was “extremely important for restaurants to be represented across multiple third-party delivery platforms.” In that sense, Outback is going against the tide in some respects by signing an exclusive deal with DoorDash. Even McDonald’s recently ended its longstanding exclusive deal with Uber Eats to add more third-party services.

This week’s press release noted that Bloomin’ chose DoorDash as its delivery partner “for the next phase of its omnichannel approach to delivery” for Outback. That could well mean the company plans to add more partners in future as it continues its navigating the phases of its delivery strategy.

Kitchen United Raises $40M for Its Ghost Kitchen Network, Expands East

Kitchen United, which operates a growing network of shared kitchen spaces for restaurants around the U.S., announced today it has closed a Series B round for $40 million. The round was co-led by RXR Realty and GV (formerly Google Ventures), with participation by funds managed by Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, DivcoWest and G Squared. Existing investors and founders John Miller, Harry Tsao, and others participated, too. This brings KU’s total funding raised to $50 million.

The popularity of ghost kitchens — also known as “virtual kitchens,” “kitchen as a service,” and a slew of other monikers — has skyrocketed in recent months as restaurants large and small try to meet the demands of this delivery-crazed era we live in. Kitchen United, which launched in 2017 in Pasadena, CA, has been at the forefront of this movement with its growing network of facilities that can house between 10 and 20 ghost kitchens per location and are home to brands like The Halal Guys, Wetzel’s Pretzels, Canter’s Deli, and others.

In October 2028, Kitchen United got a $10 million investment from Google’s parent company and CaliBurger CEO John Miller.

With the new investment, KU will be moving into more locations — the NYC market in particular. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, part of the deal with RXR Realty involves opening ghost kitchen facilities on RXR properties in the city as well as the tristate area. Such a partnership is wise on KU’s part as the company looks to expand into cities known for astronomical rents when it comes to large spaces. KU will expand to several RXR properties, starting with Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Stamford, CT.

The company currently operates a facility in Chicago as well as its original one in Pasadena. As the press release noted, locations for Scottsdale, AZ and Austin, TX will open soon. And the company is also looking to expand to other major metropolises like San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles — also cities where a deal with a real estate company might not be a bad idea.

In New York, at least, Kitchen United will compete with the newly opened Zuul Kitchens, who just opened their first location in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood and is focusing on that market for further expansion.

Starbucks Launches Voice Order and Delivery in China With Alibaba

Starbucks customers in China can now order just by speaking. This week, the coffee retailer launched voice ordering and delivery capability through Alibaba’s smart speaker, Tmall Genie.

According to an announcement from Starbucks, customers can now place an order through the speaker and have it delivered within a 30-minute timeframe via Alibaba’s food delivery platform, Ele.me. Users can track their order in real time and earn Starbucks rewards points. In the future, Starbucks Rewards members will also get more personalized recommendations — based on past orders, seasonal items, and other data — when using voice order.

To top it all off, there’s a Starbucks-themed Tmall Genie (pictured above) available through the Starbucks virtual store in China. Because who wouldn’t want to talk to an adorable DJing bear to order their coffee?

The move comes about a year after Starbucks and Alibaba first announced their partnership and is the latest in a series of initiatives to make Starbucks more widely available in China, one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for coffee consumption. While still a predominately tea-drinking nation, China saw a a 16 percent annual increase in coffee consumption between 2004 and 2013 — a growth set to continue over the next few years at 15 to 20 percent.

Starbucks began offering delivery in China through Ele.me in 2018, and also launched a virtual store across Alibaba apps including Taobao, Alipay, and Tmall. In addition, Starbucks now operates ghost kitchens in Alibaba’s Hema supermarkets to fulfill more delivery orders.

Unconnected from Alibaba, Starbucks this year opened an “express retail” concept store for pickup-only orders in Beijing.

These many different moves are meant to help Starbucks as it continues to compete with its main rival in China, Luckin Coffee. The latter is aggressively growing its number of physical locations across China.

More importantly, Luckin caters primarily to delivery and pickup, with many of its stores acting mostly as hubs for fulfilling these orders.

Starbucks is attempting a similar model with its Star Kitchens and express store concept. Whether adding something like voice-order capabilities makes a difference in the rivalry remains to be seen, though it certainly won’t hurt Starbucks to have a major tech giant like Alibaba in its corner as the fight for coffee dominance in China continues.

Starbucks Plans Pickup Only Store for NYC

Starbucks will soon bring its streamlined, pickup-only store model to Manhattan this fall, according to an article published on Bloomberg.

The NYC store, which is still under development and slated to open at some point this fall, is based on the coffee chain’s “Starbucks Now” model it debuted in Beijing in July.

Starbucks Now stores have limited seating, which wouldn’t be too drastic of a change in Manhattan, where tables and chairs at Starbucks locations are already pretty minimal. More importantly, the concept features an in-wall pickup system where customers order and pay via the Starbucks app and retrieve their orders from pickup portals in the wall, without having to wait in line. The system also works for delivery drivers, who can simply walk into the store and grab their order from the wall and go. One or two baristas will be on hand to make drinks and assist customers if they need it.

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson told Bloomberg that these stores aren’t meant to replace existing Starbucks cafes and are instead geared towards on-the-go customers (which is basically everyone in Manhattan). The express stores can also double as locations where nearby Starbucks cafes can have their delivery orders fulfilled, freeing up time for employees to focus on non-mobile customers.

They’ll need that extra location for delivery orders. Starbucks recently announced that its delivery partnership with Uber Eats will be available throughout the U.S. by early 2020.

While there’s no official timeline yet, Starbucks will likely plan similar Starbucks Now stores in other cities, including San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles.

DoorDash Outlines New Payment Policy for its Dashers

It took just about a month, but DoorDash finally revealed more details about the ways in which the company is changing how it pays its delivery people, also known as “Dashers.”

In a corporate blog post today, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu wrote that the new policy was created with input from customers, Dashers and members of the Dasher Community Council. He also posted the following image that illustrated the changes:

Here are some highlights from his post:

  • Under this new model, base pay from DoorDash to Dashers will increase and will range from $2-$10+ per delivery depending on the estimated duration, distance, and desirability of the order.
  • Dashers will also have the opportunity to earn more through promotions. Promotions will include Peak Pay and Challenge Bonuses that we plan to roll out in the coming months.
  • Every dollar customers tip will be an extra dollar in their Dasher’s pocket, and customers will be able to tip at checkout or after the delivery. The amount DoorDash pays in base pay and promotions will never vary based on the tip amount.

That last one is especially important, given that DoorDash’s treatment of tips was a big reason the company got into such public trouble in the first place.

Xu goes on to outline key principles guiding these changes, which include making customers feel like their tips are, you know, actually going to the delivery person; that Dashers should earn more money now from DoorDash as well as overall; and that Dashers will have transparency about the nature of each order, including pick up and drop-offs so “they can make an informed choice about which deliveries to accept.”

Xu said that the company has been testing the model for the past month, and that it should roll out to all Dashers next month.

The devil is always in the details, so we’ll have to see how Dashers react to these changes as they go online. But at the very least, the move should alleviate a big headache for DoorDash as it looks to potentially go public next year.

The “Middle Mile” in Food Delivery is Just Beginning

Perhaps the future of getting food and other goods delivered to your door isn’t actually in getting them to your door. A Walmart corporate blog post announcing the test of a new initiative with self-driving vehicle startup, Gatik, is the latest in this trend of moving goods between business locations. (hat tip to Grocery Dive)

Walmart’s post explained how it will pilot this self-driving vehicle program with Gatik:

In March, Arkansas passed legislation allowing for autonomous vehicles to operate in the state. With the help of Gatik, we’re making sure we stay on the cutting edge of grocery pickup by testing an autonomous vehicle to move customer orders on a two-mile route in Bentonville between two of our stores. We aim to learn more about the logistics of adding autonomous vehicles into our online grocery ecosystem, operation process changes and more opportunities to incorporate this emerging technology.

Gatik’s trucks will just be moving goods between stores along this “middle-mile” to get goods closer to your home, but not all the way there. Bloomberg reported on the promise of this middle-mile earlier this summer, writing:

As the buzz about human-carting robo-taxis starts to short-circuit, an unheralded segment of the driverless future is taking shape and showing promise: goods-moving robo-vans. Rather than serving up hot pizza pies or deploying headless robots to carry groceries to the doorstep, robo-vans travel on fixed routes from warehouse to warehouse or to a smaller pickup point, transporting packages to get them closer, but not all the way, to consumers.

Walmart is just the latest to explore the middle mile for getting people their stuff. When Uber unveiled its drone delivery program, one thing that stood out was the fact that drones wouldn’t fly burgers to people’s homes. Rather, drones would land at some kind of hub where Uber drivers would pick up the order and take it the last mile to people’s homes.

Zume Pizza operates in a similar fashion. Sifting through its vast amounts of data, Zume knows how many pizzas, and what types of pizza to make on a given night for any given geographic area it serves. Zume then pre-makes (not pre-cooks) those pizzas and sends them out in mobile kitchens parked in designated areas. As orders come in, pizzas are cooked and drivers come and pick up pizzas to take to people’s homes.

Amazon, being Amazon, is looking to bridge the middle-mile with the last mile. Spoon Founder Mike Wolf uncovered a patent this year for an autonomous Amazon robot that would live in people’s homes and automatically go and fetch packages delivered to a centralized pickup center.

The fact that big players like Walmart, Amazon and Uber are all looking at this type of two-step delivery logistics shows that we are at the beginning of the middle-mile, not the end.

What Sweden’s Quirky Food Tech Scene Could Mean for the Rest of the World

From parental leave policies to sustainability initiatives, Sweden is typically considered one of the most forward-thinking nations on earth.So it’s no surprise the country consistently pops up in food tech conversations, often for unusual projects that seem quirky at first glance but can actually tell us a lot about how tech is changing the way we eat.

Like making customers do what’s essentially a blind taste-test to see if they can tell the difference between a plant-based burger and the real deal. The famed Impossible Burger isn’t available in Europe right now, but that didn’t stop Burger King from using Vivera’s plant-based patty to create a version of its Whopper — and betting customers can’t discern the difference between it and a regular meat-based one.

To drive that point home, BK in Sweden launched the “50/50 menu” at the beginning of July where customers order BK’s signature burger and have a 50/50 chance of getting a meat version or the plant-based version. The only way to tell which is which is to scan a QR code on the wrapper.

It’s a gimmick, to be sure, but as my colleague Catherine Lamb pointed out, it’s also a way to get better data on plant-based offerings: “It will get a record of every consumer’s reaction to the sandwiches, and be able to quantify how often people are actually duped by the vegetarian alternatives.”

More data like this could give Burger King a realistic picture of how much customers actually want plant-based fast food — a useful lesson for businesses in any part of the world.

Or you could just hand your customers a picnic blanket. That’s what McDonald’s in Sweden did earlier this summer to promote its initiatives around delivering to public spaces via geofencing technologies. Customers scan a QR code on the picnic blanket to shoot their geographic information to a third-party delivery service, who will deliver a McDonald’s meal from the chain’s nearest location.

The idea isn’t specific to Sweden: companies like Domino’s and 7-Eleven also deliver to public locations rather than a numbered addresses. But there’s something more attention-grabbing about scanning a picnic blanket than simply logging into an app. PR stunt though it may be, it suggests a whole new avenue of possibilities when it comes to using everyday objects and settings in life to ramp up the food delivery business.

On a more ambitious level, come September 3, restaurant-goers in Stockholm will be able to experience what science, technology, academic research, design, and cooking look like when bundled together to form a single sustainable restaurant.

Restauranglabbet (“the restaurant lab”) will test numerous sustainability measures under one roof, from curbing food waste to cooking with more local, sustainable ingredients to measuring carbon footprint and using only eco-friendly materials in furniture design and production.

We won’t know how successful the project is until Restauranglabbet’s doors open on September 3, but no doubt there will be pieces of restaurant innovation coming out of the lab the whole world should take note of.

Elsewhere, a company in Stockholm called Diaz & Swahn is experimenting inside and outside the restaurant with how sound can affect the way food tastes to people. And a company called Local Food Node makes a digital platform that allows users to connect with local food producers by creating nodes that function as delivery and pickup spots for the food.

Will we be seeing QR-enabled picnic loot and sound-centric restaurants in the States anytime soon? Probably in part, particularly when it comes to building a more sustainable restaurant and finding new avenues for food delivery. In any case, keep your eye on Sweden one to watch for finding more innovative, scalable ways to integrate tech meaningfully into our food lives.

Krispy Kreme Gets a Digital Makeover With Newly Redesigned Store

Krispy Kreme debuted its first store redesign in over a decade this week, and it’s all about digital enhancements to speed up ordering, payments, pickup, and delivery for the doughnut-centric business.

According to a press release, the first of these locations opened on Tuesday in Concord, N.C., appropriately just a stone’s throw away from the company’s Global Product & Innovation Center.

Besides an expanded menu and something called “an enhanced doughnut theater experience,” where you can watch the goods being made step by step, the new store design features a number of tech-forward initiatives. Online ordering is integrated into the overall format, as is delivery. In terms of physical layout, the store has a dedicated area for self-service mobile order pickup for customers and/or delivery drivers. Krispy Kreme has also expanded the store’s drive-thru to two lanes — much like Dunkin’ did in 2018 when it opened its next-generation concept store.

The similarities between Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ shouldn’t be taken as a doughnut to donut comparison, though. Rather, Krispy Kreme is merely following the direction most QSRs are traveling these days, which is all about becoming digital-first restaurants that can accommodate the growing number of sales channels (in-store, delivery, mobile app, drive-thru) customers want as options for ordering, as well as growing demand for better personalization. The news comes just days after KFC announced its digitally focused drive-thru of the future, Starbucks opened an express store concept in China, and, here in the U.S., Brightloom (formerly Eatsa) upped the ante on restaurant-tech in general by partnering with Starbucks to license the latter’s tech. Among many other developments.

According to the press release, the Concord, N.C. store is the first of 45 planned Krispy Kreme locations, new and existing, that will get the digital makeover throughout 2020.

DoorDash CEO’s Tweet-a-Culpa: Says Delivery Company Changing its Much-Maligned Tipping Policy

Facing a growing backlash over how it treats tips for delivery drivers, DoorDash’s CEO indicated on Twitter today that the company is looking to change its controversial wage structure.

In a tweet thread last night, DoorDash CEO and Co-Founder Tony Xu wrote:

After a year of research and conversations with thousands of Dashers, we built a pay model to prioritize transparency, consistency of earnings, and to ensure all customers get their food as fast as possible.

But it’s clear from recent feedback that we didn’t strike the right balance. We thought we were doing the right thing by making Dashers whole when a customer left no tip. What we missed was that some customers who *did* tip would feel like their tip did not matter.

We did not launch our current model to pay Dashers less. In fact, when we moved to it, our average contribution to Dashers stayed the same.

Going forward, we’re changing our model – the new model will ensure that Dashers’ earnings will increase by the exact amount a customer tips on every order. We’ll have specific details in the coming days.

Customer obsession and getting 1% better everyday are core values at DoorDash. These beliefs have led us to improvements in the past and they serve as our guide for the future.

DoorDash had been facing a mountain of bad press over the past couple of months over the way it used tips left for its delivery drivers. Where a person placing the order might have thought that tips they left went straight to the Dasher’s pocket, they were, instead, being used by DoorDash to fill in pay gaps in order to ensure a guaranteed fee for the job. So it wasn’t extra for a job well done.

Xu’s thread was obviously light on details, but he must have seen things in DoorDash’s data that showed that keeping this odious policy was bad for business. Not helping was the fact that it came to light earlier this week that Uber is testing out a $25 a month subscription plan that includes free Uber Eats delivery. In the cutthroat battle for delivery dollars, continuing to mislead customers is a bad idea.

Here’s a tip for DoorDash and every delivery service: treat the people building your business fairly.

Starbucks and Uber Eats to Roll Out Delivery Nationwide

Lazy latte drinkers around the country can rejoice as Starbucks announced today that it is expanding its “preferred” delivery partnership with Uber Eats, which will be available throughout the U.S. by early 2020. Starbucks said the nationwide rollout comes following an eleven-market trial in cities like Miami, Seattle and New York proved successful.

It’s only Tuesday and already it has been a busy week for both Starbucks and Uber’s corporate communications departments. The news that has been both announced and broken have been chock-a-block with tidbits that point to potential futures of both companies.

Let’s start with Starbucks, and this little nugget from today’s press release:

Through the agreement, the companies will collaborate on innovation and technology integration. Starbucks and Uber Eats will continue to focus on delivery packaging, in-store operations, and a quick order-to-door delivery window. (emphasis ours)

This is the second technology integration announcement from the coffee giant in as many days. Yesterday, Starbucks announced that as part of its investment in Brightloom (formerly eatsa), Brightloom will integrate some aspects of Starbucks’ tech stack. As my colleague, Jenn Marston wrote:

Starbucks said it has granted Brightloom a software license that allows the latter to “select components of Starbucks proprietary digital flywheel software.” In other words, Brightloom will integrate features from Starbucks’ customer engagement platform like its mobile order and pay system, loyalty program, and personalization features. Basically all the stuff that makes Starbucks customers continue to use the mobile app.

Starbucks is becoming more like Amazon, which built up its own cloud infrastructure before spinning it off for others to use as Amazon Web Services. Will we see a similar Starbucks-as-a-Service? There are certainly enough retailers who would kill for a world-class mobile customer engagement platform, and if they could lease it like AWS, that could provide a whole new side biz for the ‘bucks.

But the week has also been interesting for Uber Eats. Yesterday, TechCrunch revealed that Uber is testing out a monthly subscription service in San Francisco and Chicago. For $24.99 a month, customers get a fixed discount on rides, free rentals of Jump bikes and scooters, and free delivery through Uber Eats.

It’s a smart play by Uber to keep people (and their data) on its platform. Why go to DoorDash when you can get discounted rides and free food delivery through Uber? Becoming the “preferred” delivery partner for Starbucks only sweetens that appeal. Especially for those lazy latte drinkers.

London: Uber Eats’ New Restaurant Accelerator Program Will Cover “Gaps” in Food Selection

Say you live in London and really want Malaysian food and really don’t want to get dressed, but you can’t find any spots near enough that they’ll deliver.

That’s exactly the problem that Uber Eats is hoping to solve with its new accelerator program. According to Quartz, the food delivery giant is partnering with London shared kitchen space rental company Karma Kitchen to create a program to help strategically-selected restaurants improve operations.

Uber Eats will sift through customer data to identify “selection gaps” — unmet consumer demand for certain cuisines, dishes, etc. — then will pick five to seven restaurants that fill those gaps to participate in the three-week accelerator. During the program restaurants will receive help from Uber Eats to improve a wide variety of operations — everything from branding to staffing to streamlining workflows to speed up delivery times. After they graduate, Uber Eats will ensure that the restaurants receive enough orders to meet basic costs for six weeks (though the article doesn’t outline how it will do so).

This seems to be separate from but related to Uber Eats’ existing virtual restaurant concept, which sets up delivery only restaurants-within-restaurants based off of foods that are rising in popularity. Instead of adding a new type of cuisine to existing restaurants, Uber Eats is finding restaurants that serve an unmet need and teaching them how to get better at delivery (or possibly start doing it in the first place.)

When I first read about Uber Eats’ new program, I immediately thought of Deliveroo’s Editions. Deliveroo Editions is a curated hub of delivery-only restaurants which operate out of shipping container clusters built and operated by the company. Deliveroo gathers data to figure out what cuisines consumers want but don’t have access to, then invites those restaurants to set up shop in one of their Editions parks. Restaurants get low overhead, Deliveroo gets to edge out other delivery services to serve customers exactly what they want.

While it shares the same end goal (closing selection gaps with exclusively signed restaurants), Uber Eats’ new program stops way short of Deliveroo’s offerings. Instead of doing all the work to build out and operate physical ghost kitchens, it simply puts targeted restaurants through an accelerator program. Since it’s partnering with Karma Kitchen, it doesn’t even have to provide space.

Deliveroo Editions.

It’s a no-brainer for restaurant delivery companies to use data to try and meet unmet consumer demand for certain food types. What’s less clear is if Uber’s strategy to do so through accelerating restaurants will have the desired result.

The program is only three weeks long, which is a pretty short amount of time to teach restaurants how to do everything from effectively staff to pass food hygiene inspections to use accounting software. Then again, these are presumably things that restaurants already know how to do — so maybe the abbreviated timespan is just meant for Uber Eats to help them do these things better?

I’m also curious if there is any sort of follow-up support involved, though it wasn’t noted in the Quartz article. Similarly there was no mention of financial investment. Most importantly, there was clarity on whether or not Uber Eats will have exclusive delivery privileges for participating restaurants post-program, though it would be odd for the company to go to the trouble of creating an entire accelerator if that wasn’t the case. [We’ve reached out to Uber Eats and will update the post if we hear back.]

Deliveroo’s Editions program has a more clear payoff — it gets exclusive delivery privileges for all restaurants in the Editions parks. However, it also has to put in a larger investment. The delivery company has to actually build out physical kitchen spaces, and also manage all operations cost (electricity, gas, etc.). With Editions, Deliveroo also takes on the risk that not all their selected restaurants will do well (though presumably if they don’t Deliveroo can cut them from the Editions lineup).

News of Uber Eats’ accelerator comes as competition in the U.K. delivery space heats up. Now that Amazon Restaurants is out of the game, the biggest remaining players are Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat. Uber Eats is, well, Uber Eats, and has all the massive name recognition, data, and funding that comes along with that. It’s also currently piloting ghost kitchens in Paris. But Deliveroo is no slouch: it recently got a hefty investment of from Amazon (though it’s under scrutiny now), and just last week launched a procurement platform to supply its restaurants with discounted ingredients and supplies. For its part, Just Eat has been making acquisitions in corporate catering and restaurant tech, but recently its growth has slowed and earlier today news emerged the company just made a round of layoffs.

If successful, Uber Eats hopes to run the program several times per year. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the third-party delivery company bring it to the U.S. After all, Uber Eats needs to use every possible weapon in its arsenal to compete against the likes of DoorDash, Grubhub, and Postmates — and, as Deliveroo Editions hasn’t made its way across the pond, filling selection gaps seems a smart way to stand out.