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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food Tech News: Scented Water, Kabocha Squash Milk, and Robot Delivery at Ohio State

Welcome to the weekend, and the Food Tech News round-up!

Air Up uses scent to trick people into drinking more water

UK-based Air Up has developed a bottle that flavors water through scent, and tricks the brain with retronasal smelling technology. The top of the bottle has space to insert a scented pod, which is made from aromas extracted from fruits, plants, and spices. Once the bottle is filled with still or sparkling water, and the desired pod has been selected, the user sips from the silicon straw attachment on top. While drinking the water, air from the pod rises up, and the olfactory center perceives it as taste, rather than just smell.

The scented pods come in flavors like berry, kola, coffee, and cucumber, with a single pod lasting for about 5 liters of water. Air Up products are currently available in Germany, Austria, Swiss, France, Belgium, the UK, and the Netherlands, and the company has plans to continue expanding throughout Europe and to the U.S.

Eat Just to launch alternative egg product in South Africa

Alternative protein company Eat Just and Infinite Foods, a market platform for plant-based food brands, announced this week they have partnered to launch JUST Egg products in South Africa. The JUST Egg Folded, made predominantly from mung beans, will be sold in a box of four in the frozen aisle. Wellness Warehouse, a grocery and wellness product retailer, will carry the product across South Africa, as well as in restaurants in Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg. Additionally, the alternative egg will be available on Infinite Foods’ website. According to the press release, this will be the first plant-based egg available in South Africa.

Grubhub and Yandex will offer robot delivery on the Ohio State University campus

Grubhub, a food delivery platform, and Yandex, a robot delivery service, have announced that they will be operating together on the Ohio State University. There will be 50 Yandex robots on campus that are able to deliver between the hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. A robot is able to move throughout the campus going three to five miles an hour, navigate through crosswalks, and deliver in all weather. The campus is home to 60,000 students who can order delivery from any on-campus dining establishment to any residence hall on campus, and to the Bricker Hall and Thompson Library. This is the first college campus that the Yandex robots will be operating on.

Kabochamilk launches for consumers in Asia

We can buy milk made from chia seeds, barley, oats, pistachios, and now, kabocha squash. Shane Newman, a kabocha squash farmer in Hawkes Bay, Zealand, and Sachie Nomura, a celebrity chef and the creator of avocadomilk, have collaborated to produce Kabochamilk. The company received $95,000 from the Ministry for Primary Industries in New Zealand through the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund to launch. The Kabocha Milk Company has created a shelf-stable formula that is intended for consumers in Japan, Korea, and China, where kabocha squash is a dietary staple. The alternative milk is currently available in two high-end chains, Tsurya and Harashin, in Japan.

Yandex Delivery Robots Coming to College Campuses Courtesy of Grubhub

Food delivery service Grubhub announced today that it will be bringing delivery robots to college campuses this fall thanks to a new multi-year partnership with Russian tech giant Yandex.

Yandex’s rovers are squat, cooler-sized robots that can autonomously traverse pre-mapped areas. As yet, there aren’t a ton of public details on the partnership, such as where the the robot delivery will launch or how much it will cost, but in the press announcement, Yandex said it would be deploying “dozens” of its robots for the program.

College campuses are actually a pretty great environment for last-mile delivery robots. Campuses hold large populations that eat at all hours of the day and night. They are contained geographic with ample pedestrian walkways, and they can be difficult for full-sized delivery cars and drivers to navigate. Robots and their contactless delivery can also be of use in these post-pandemic times for students packed in college dorms. Should someone living on campus get sick, they don’t need to leave their room and stand in line with other people in the cafeteria. Instead, they can ring up a robot and have food delivered, reducing their human-to-human contact.

As such, colleges are among the first places to deploy delivery robots. Starship operates at a growing number of colleges throughout the U.S., and Kiwibot is ramping up its own college food delivery programs as well. Grubhub has existing partnerships with more than 250 college campuses across the U.S., integrating student meal plans with delivery from on- and off- campus restaurants.

In addition to giving Grubhub a robotic entrée onto college campuses, this partnership also gives Yandex its first foray into the U.S. market. Yandex has been making meal deliveries around the Russian cities of Moscow and Innopolis since December of last year.

Grubhub and Resorts World Las Vegas Partner on New Hotel Concept

Resorts World Las Vegas has announced a partnership with Grubhub for a new mobile order service. Guests of the forthcoming Resorts World Las Vegas property will be able to use the service to get food, drinks, and retail items for delivery and pickup during their stay.

Dubbed On The Fly at Resorts World Powered by Grubhub, the service lets guests order from all of the resort’s onsite food and beverage locations as well as certain retail stores. Items can be scheduled for pickup or delivered to the guest’s hotel room or the resort’s pool complex.

To use the service, Resorts World guests either access the Grubhub app or scan one of the many QR codes that will be located throughout the property. Users will also get the option to charge the purchase to their room, just as they would with a traditional room service order, or use their credit card. For poolside deliveries, guests access their order at a QR-code activated restaurant locker on the pool deck. 

The 88-acre Resorts World Las Vegas property will include three Hilton hotel brands in addition to the usual trappings of a Las Vegas property — casino, stores, restaurants, etc. The whole thing is slated to open this week, on June 24. 

It also marks the first time Grubhub’s service has been available at a hotel/casino property. The sheer size of Resorts World Las Vegas — three hotels and 40 food/bev outlets in an 88-acre property — gives Grubhub automatic access to a potentially huge customer base in Sin City. 

Last week, Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway.com said it had completed its acquisition of Grubhub, a $7.3 million all-stock deal that was originally announced one year ago. Currently, Grubhub’s strongest markets are New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. 

Grubhub Debuts ‘Commission-Free’ Platform Aimed at Independent Restaurants

Grubhub on Wednesday launched Grubhub Direct, a platform independent restaurants can use to build their own online storefronts and process orders free of commission. According to a press release from Grubhub, the platform also gives restaurants control of their customer data. 

The launch comes after more than a year of heavy criticism of delivery services over the commission fees they charge restaurants. Though Grubhub and others have done this for years, the issue became a lot more hot-button in 2020 when the pandemic shut dining rooms down and forced businesses to rely on third-party delivery services. Many cities across the U.S. introduced mandatory fee caps to keep commission fees in check. 

Seemingly in response, third-party delivery services have, one after the other, launched various means of addressing the restaurant commission fee issue. Uber Eats was first, in July of last year. DoorDash followed, with a “tiered commission” setup. 

Grubhub’s particular version is, the company indicated today, particularly geared towards independent restaurants — a group that’s historically paid the most in commission fees. Grubhub direct offers these restaurants the option to build a branded website, create loyalty programs and promotions, the ability to process and manage orders, and access customer names, email addresses, and order history.

Grubhub says there is no marketing commission on Grubhub Direct orders, and that it is waiving the one-time setup fee (normally $99) on the product until May 2022. 

Per the fine print, restaurants will pay Grubhub a $49/month non-refundable hosting fee for their website for each location. Restaurants must use a URL provided by Grubhub, and of course, since it’s a Grubhub platform, all the data still lives in the hands of the delivery service. Like any other third-party service, Grubhub will still charge a commission fee if the restaurant uses a Grubhub driver to handle the last mile. 

Direct also seems to be Grubhub’s way of competing with software platforms like those from Ontray, Lunchbox, and others. These services also let restaurants build their own digital storefronts and manage orders, and many already integrate with third-party delivery services for the last mile of delivery.

Grubhub, meanwhile, may be undergoing some big changes in the near future. Just Eat Takeaway.com, a Dutch delivery service that acquired Grubhub for $7 billion in 2020, recently published its prospectus for the merger. As it noted, Grubhub shareholders will meet to vote on the offer in June. 

Uber Eats Launches Campaign to Support Independent Restaurants

Uber today announced Eat Local, a campaign the company says will support independent restaurants financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As part of the Eat Local package, Uber will donate $4.5 million to the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), which will in turn distribute financial assistance to U.S. restaurants facing COVID-19-related challenges. Restaurants must be on the Uber Eats and/or Postmates platforms to be eligible. 

According to the LISC website, the applications process for grants opens on Feb. 16. The grant program will offer to help restaurants meet certain expenses, such as payroll, rent, utilities, outstanding debts to vendors, and upgrading technology systems. 

Restaurants must have been active on Uber Eats or Postmates since Jan. 1, 2021 in order to be eligible for the grant. Businesses must also have less than five locations and not be affiliated with a national brand. (The full list of eligibility requirements is on LISC’s site.)

In keeping with earlier relief efforts from 2020, Uber’s Eat Local package also includes waived and reduced fees for restaurants around restaurant pickup orders and for orders placed via a restaurant’s own website but delivered by Uber Eats. Restaurants can get daily payouts instead of the standard weekly ones, and Uber will also continue matching donations made by customers via the Eats app’s Restaurant Contribution feature.

Uber (and newly acquired Postmates) along with Grubhub and DoorDash first began offering relief packages for restaurants back in March 2020, when shelter-in-place mandates first went into effect in the U.S. Since then, these services have launched various grant programs and assistance efforts, including Grubhub’s Winterization Grant and DoorDash’s ongoing Main Street Strong program.

All of these efforts go some ways towards helping small and independent restaurants, which have been most damaged by the pandemic. What remains unclear is how much grants and relief efforts help when stacked up against the high commission fees third-party delivery service continue to charge these smaller restaurants. That factor remains likely to be a point of heated debate long after the worst parts of the pandemic have subsided.

Grubhub to Offer In-Car Ordering Through Fiat Vehicles

In-vehicle tech company Lear Corporation announced today that its Xevo software businesses has partnered with Grubhub to bring food ordering capabilities to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). Drivers will be able to order food from the third-party delivery service via an app on FCA’s Uconnect Market platform. 

FCA vehicles will be the first to offer Grubhub’s service as an in-vehicle feature. Once signed into their Grubhub account via the in-car system, customers can order ahead and pay for their meal on the go before picking it up from the restaurant. Users will also be able to reorder past meals market as “favorites.”

An additional feature lets users discover “new favorites,” too. If a customer is driving by a restaurant from which theY have never ordered, they can tap a button that will forward the restaurant’s menu to their email. Needless to say, drivers can’t browse the menu of a new restaurant while actually driving the car. 

Given restaurant tech’s current focus on making the customer meal journey speedier and more efficient, adding order-ahead and pay features to the car seems like a no-brainer. Grubhub may be the first third-party delivery service to land in the car, but the Xevo deal is not the first go-around for in-vehicle restaurant service. In 2019, Domino’s teamed up with both Xevo and Chevrolet for in-vehicle ordering deals. Also in 2019, BMW partnered with Olo to make food ordering directly available from BMW vehicles. 

FCA’s Uconnect platform, meanwhile, is available on 2019 and 2020 models of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram vehicles, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Grubhub is available soon to those drivers as well.

DoorDash Files for IPO, Could Start Trading in December

DoorDash unveiled its public S-1 filing this morning after confidentially filing to go public earlier this year. The San Francisco-based third-party delivery service is expected to begin trading on the NYSE in mid-December.

Reports of the service going public as soon as 2020 first surfaced in August, along with hints that the company was trekking towards actual profitability, which is still something of an elusive concept in the world of third-party delivery. Today’s unveil of DoorDash’s S-1 filing shows that the company reported a profit for the first time in its history during the second quarter of 2020. The company garnered $675 million in revenue and a profit of $23 million for Q2 2020. The company posted a net loss of $43 million for Q3, but still reported revenue growth of $879 million and has ample cash to fund itself — $1.6 billion, to be exact, though DoorDash has said COVID-related lockdowns played a significant role in its growth and that growth rates in revenue could decline in future.

DoorDash’s forthcoming IPO arrives at a time when demand for food delivery apps is thriving. Data from September shows that sales for these services grew 125 percent year-over-year during that month. DoorDash earned almost half, or 49 percent, of those sales — a significantly higher number than the 22 percent of Uber Eats or the 20 percent of Grubhub.

Restaurant delivery remains the biggest slice of DoorDash’s business, but it’s no longer the only one. Perhaps because of the uncertainty of the current restaurant industry, the company branched out into grocery and convenience store delivery this year, too. It even went as far as opening its own “ghost convenience store” facility in August.

Though all this cash and profitability comes at a cost of its own, a human cost in this case. DoorDash helped bankroll Prop 22, which California voters just passed and which allows third-party delivery services to continue classifying their workers as independent contractors. In other words, they’re saving a lot of money by not shelling out for benefits like workers comp, health care, and paid sick leave. The company also remains steeped in controversy around the high commission fees it extracts from restaurants at a time when businesses are shuttering in record numbers because of the pandemic. 

Unfortunately, money usually talks louder than any other issue on the table. DoorDash’s filing today shows that despite these controversies, the company’s growth is unlikely to slow any time soon. 

Grubhub Launches a New Grant to Get Restaurants Ready for Winter

Grubhub today announced the Restaurant Winterization Grant, a new program that will provide financial support to restaurants as we move into winter and outdoor dining becomes a challenge in many areas of the country.

Done in partnership with The Greg Hill Foundation’s Restaurant Strong Fund, the program will grant $10,000 to “eligible independent restaurants,” according to a press release sent to The Spoon. The funds are intended to provide restaurants with “additional infrastructure and equipment to extend outdoor dining” along with more personal protective equipment for employees.

Wintertime’s arrival coincides with record highs of coronavirus cases in the U.S. As far as restaurants are concerned, the combination of the two makes indoor dining risky in many cases, nonexistent in others. Up to now, restaurants have been able to offset some of that loss with new developments for outdoor dining plans. Now, businesses will need to innovate on those innovations in order to continue to serve customers without expecting them to eat in the midst of 30-degree temperatures or wintery mixes.

Grubhub’s new program is supported by a $2 million grant recommendation from its Grubhub Community Relief Fund, started back in March as a way to support charitable organizations helping restaurants. 

The new program joins other efforts around the country to winterize outdoor dining. Recently, the city of Chicago held a contest asking residents to redesign the outdoor dining experience for winter. Elsewhere, Washington D.C.’s Office of Nightlife and Culture announced a $4 million grant program to help restaurants cover the cost of tents, domes, heaters, furnishings and other outdoor-dining-related equipment. Grubhub is the first third-party delivery service to dedicate a fund towards outdoor dining.

Those interested in applying for funds can do so starting today through the aforementioned Restaurant Strong Fund. Restaurants located in Chicago, New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, and which have “five or fewer” locations are eligible to apply. The application period ends Nov. 21, and Grubhub has said funds will be distributed by the end of the month. 

In DoorDash We Trust?

It’s our weekly restaurant tech news wrapup!

Food delivery aggregators: love ‘em or hate ‘em, few would at this point deny that restaurants need them right now. Maybe that’s not where we’d like to be as a restaurant industry, but it’s where the pandemic has forced businesses — a point underscored by new survey data from tech company Raydiant. According to the new report, which surveyed restaurant operators and managers, 37.5 percent of restaurants would not have been able to stay in business without third-party delivery apps over the last several months.

But not all third-party delivery aggregators are equal in the eyes of restaurants when it comes to trust. Arguably the most interesting part of Raydiant’s survey is the breakdown of which delivery service respondents “associated most with trust and support.” DoorDash won in a landslide, with 58 percent, followed next by Grubhub at 18 percent and Uber Eats at 17 percent. Seamless, which is owned by Grubhub, came in last, with a whopping 1 percent.

The report does not go into specifics as to how it defines “trust” and “support.” But a quick comparison of recent developments from these services illustrates why the names stacked up as they did in Raydiant’s survey. 

DoorDash was quick to respond to restaurant shutdowns when the pandemic came Stateside back in March, waiving fees for certain restaurant partners and setting up a relief fund for businesses. Since that time, the company — which is trekking towards an IPO — has positioned itself as an ally to struggling restaurants. Just earlier this week, it launched its Reopen for Delivery initiative, which will help shuttered restaurants rebrand as virtual concepts. The company is not without its controversies, but it’s managed to steer clear of major ones over the last several months.

Grubhub also responded speedily to the restaurant shutdowns — by making an opaque announcement that initially seemed to say it was waiving commission fees when in reality the service was only delaying collection of them. Grubhub has also racked up numerous complaints from restaurants, including bogus phone fees, outrageous commission fees, listing non-partnered restaurants, and this bizarre saga. 

Uber Eats and Postmates generate fewer controversial headlines, though they, along with DoorDash, also charge restaurants unsustainably high commission fees for every order placed through their platforms.

All this doesn’t mean restaurants should ditch their partnerships with the others in favor of working with DoorDash. Many agree that more is better when it comes to delivery aggregators these days. And like I said, we can hate on delivery services all we want, but the complicated logistics of delivery in 2020 makes them cheaper and faster for restaurants than any other solution that exists right now.

Nor, however, should restaurants hedge all their bets on third-party delivery services, which are definitely not hedging all of theirs on restaurants. Recent moves by both DoorDash and Uber Eats into grocery delivery make clear that these services will go where there’s money to be made. Online grocery sales are expected to hit $250 billion by 2025. The restaurant industry, meanwhile, has already lost billions of dollars due to the pandemic.

Simultaneously, new approaches to restaurant delivery are emerging that bring ordering, branding, and sometimes even the drivers back into restaurants’ control. This will only accelerate with the rise of virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens. Restaurants may still need third-party delivery, but it’s only a matter of time before they need it, or at least pieces of it, less.

It all makes third-party delivery something of a fair-weather friend to restaurants. Despite the relief funds and press releases proclaiming they’re here to help restaurants, delivery services are also making clear that they are, first and foremost, tech companies in the business of moving goods. They’ll go wherever those goods happen to be most plentiful. Given that, trust around these services seems tenuous at best when it comes to restaurants.

Dive Deep Into Ghost Kitchen Strategy

Delivery isn’t the only thing that’s here to stay. Ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants have also proven themselves mainstays of the restaurant biz over the last few months. But what’s the difference between a ghost kitchen and a virtual restaurant? Does every restaurant need to invest in this space? Where the heck does one even begin?

On December 9, The Spoon will gather together restaurants, industry analysts, restaurant tech companies, ghost kitchen operators, virtual restauranteurs, and others to talk through the above questions and more. The day will provide a variety of perspectives on where the ghost kitchen and virtual restaurant sectors are headed as well as next steps for those wanting to get involved.

Register to join us for this event.  If you’re in the ghost kitchen space and are interested in sponsoring the event, let us know!

Dunkin Donuts

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

Dunkin’ will close over 680 underperforming stores, according to the company’s Q3 2020 earnings release. The company said it will allow these franchisees to reopen in Dunkin’s “NextGen” store format or relocate to higher-traffic areas that can accommodate drive-thru.

Delivery integrator Chowly announced this week it has added Grubhub to its list of delivery partners. Mutual customers of the two companies can use both pieces of restaurant tech to streamline the management and fulfillment process of their delivery orders.

Chicago has shut down indoor dining again in response to rising COVID-19 numbers. No indoor service, including bar service, will be allowed, and outdoor dining must end by 11 p.m.

 

Uber Eats’ Revamped App Aims to Make Restaurant Discoverability Easier

Uber Eats today unveiled a newly revamped app and website the delivery service says will improve restaurant discoverability. According to a company blog post, this digital makeover will roll out “over the coming weeks.”

The revamp will include a number of new features, several of which are designed to make the process of finding one’s desired cuisine and restaurant faster. A shortcut toolbar will feature a user’s favorite cuisine types as well as quicker access to grocery stores, pet supply stores, flower shops, and other businesses that are relatively new to the third-party delivery space. These “discoverability” tools also include a feature Eats has dubbed Hidden Gems, which surfaces local restaurants in a user’s neighborhood and recommend restaurants based on past orders.

Enhanced pickup options are the other feature Eats is highlighting with this redesign. The new app and website will include “visual cues” on the map so users can see which nearby restaurants offer pickup options. The map will also show restaurant ratings and local deals. Finally, a group orders feature lets users order from multiple restaurants at the same time through one single order.

Uber said in today’s blog post that after talking to users, the company realized that while ordering, checking out, and tracking meals via its app is simple and streamlined, actually finding a restaurant is a time-consuming task for many. The features announced today aim to minimize the time it takes to find, say, a local pizza spot with a reasonably good reputation and good quality food.

Of course, having to scroll through a gazillion restaurant listings to get dinner delivered is arguably not a real problem. But in the micro-world of third-party delivery services, speed and efficiency reigns, and Eats, Grubhub, Postmates, and DoorDash now regularly release new features meant to shave a few more seconds off the overall delivery app experience.

Among the major third-party delivery apps, August sales grew 158 percent year-over-year collectively, according to recent data from Second Measure. At the same time, though, the third-party delivery sector remains controversial. In particular, the sky-high commission fees they charge restaurants are seen as nothing short of predatory at a time when permanent restaurant closures are increasing because of the pandemic. Others worry that the restaurant industry meltdown will leave us in a world where the bulk of our restaurant options come from chains. Last time I checked, enhanced discoverability tools and better map features can’t fix that problem.

Denver Cracks Down on Third-Party Delivery Practices

Denver, Colo. is the latest U.S. city to introduce mandatory caps on the commission fees third-party delivery services charge restaurants. The Denver City Council this week unanimously approved a 15 percent cap on the amount for delivery per transaction.

It’s the most recent development in an ongoing battle between delivery services like Grubhub and DoorDash and restaurants, regulators, and industry advocates. Delivery services, which normally charge as high as 30 percent per transaction in commission fees, argue that capping these fees undermine services’ ability to effectively operate. (A huge part of delivery services’ revenue comes from commission fees.) Advocates of the fees say the high percentages hurt the smallest restaurants most, and are predatory at a time when many independent businesses have little choice but to use delivery services to fulfill the uptick in off-premises orders. 

Fee caps were first introduced this past spring, just as the pandemic was intensifying and restaurants were closing dining rooms. San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC were among the first U.S. cities to introduce caps. Since then, more than a dozen other cities around the country have joined in, and as the number of COVID-19 cases has ebbed and flowed, some have even extended their caps. At the beginning of September, NYC and Los Angeles both extended their fee caps, while Alameda County and the city of Santa Clara, Calif. implemented them for the first time.

For now, Denver’s caps are set to expire on Feb. 9, though given the uncertain trajectory of both the coronavirus and indoor dining, that could change. Many cities have said fee caps will remain in place as long as emergency orders do, and Denver may yet renew its own deadline.

Nor did Denver’s attempt to regulate third-party delivery stop at fee caps. This week’s ordinance also bans delivery services from adding non-partnered restaurants to their sites. Previously, Grubhub et al. listed restaurants on their platforms regardless of whether the service had an actual contract with the eating establishment. It’s an understatement to say the practice has received some bad press, and California has even gone as far as to outlaw the practice across the state.

Denver may be the latest city to crack down on third-party delivery practices, but it won’t be the last. With more dining rooms closing permanently and virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens now the most popular kid on the block, regulations will multiply over time, rather than go away. With or without a pandemic, the fight for or against the third-party delivery model has only just started.

Grubhub Partners With Lyft to Offer Lyft Pink Members Delivery Perks

Grubhub announced today it has inked an exclusive partnership with rideshare service Lyft to offer the latter’s Lyft Pink members complimentary access to Grubhub+, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Lyft Pink is the rideshare service’s membership program that offers riders perks like priority airport pickup, discounts, and bikes and scooters. The free Grubhub+ membership (which normally costs $9.99/month) will add further items to that list, including free unlimited delivery, discounts on meals, and donation matching for contributions made to Grubhub’s Community Relief fund.

Grubhub launched Grubhub+ earlier this year, following in the footsteps of other third-party delivery services that offer membership programs, like DoorDash’s DashPass membership and Uber Eat’s Eats Pass. And much like DoorDash’s DashPass-Amex partnership from earlier this year, Grubhub’s teaming up with Lyft subscribers gives the delivery service access to an even wider base of potential customers.

For Lyft, the partnership could be a much-needed boost at a time when the pandemic has devastated the rideshare business but built up the food delivery sector. Uber, for example, has said its Eats business is now its main money maker. While the Lyft-Grubhub deal is slightly different, since Lyft does not own Grubhub, the rideshare service may still see the partnership as an opportunity to bolster its flailing numbers. With COVID-19 cases rising again and the threat of shutdowns for non-essential businesses looming, Lyft will need new customer acquisition channels outside its ride share business for some time to come.

Grubhub, meanwhile, was the center of a bidding war earlier this year, with food delivery mega-company Just Eat Takeaway.com finally winning out and buying the service for $7.3 billion. Grubhub and other third-party delivery services also remain at the center of many a controversy — commission fees, worker classification, non-partner restaurants. That makes wider access to Grubhub through deals like Lyft and Just Eat Takeaway.com beneficial for customers but not necessarily great news for restaurants.