Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Uber Eats

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. 

Uber Q3: Delivery Up 190 Percent Year-Over-Year

Uber reported its third-quarter earnings today, and as expected during this ongoing pandemic, the company’s delivery business, which includes Uber Eats continues to be its moneymaker.

Here are the topline Q3 stats:

  • Uber Delivery’s gross bookings grew 135 percent year-over-year, hitting $8.55 billion
  • Delivery’s adjusted net revenue grew 190 percent year-over-year, hitting $1.14 billion in revenue.
  • Restaurant partners on Uber Eats grew by more than 70 percent year-over-year

For comparison, in Q2 of this year, gross bookings for Uber’s delivery business was $6.96 billion.

Adjusted net revenues for Uber’s mobility, which includes its ridesharing business, declined 52 percent year-over-year, to $1.37 billion. Overall, Uber lost $1.09 billion, which is better than the $1.16 billion lost over the same time last year.

That delivery continues to be the main driver (pardon the pun) for Uber isn’t surprising. Though the pandemic flattened a little bit during the three months ending September 30, people just are not traveling as much as they did pre-pandemic. They are, however, getting restaurant delivery to eat at home, which kept Uber Eats busy.

Something to keep an eye for next quarter is whether Uber Eats’ expansion into grocery in Florida, Texas and New York City will have any impact on earnings. It’s been a record-setting year for online grocery, the winter months are just about upon us and the pandemic resurging. Will all these factors make Uber’s nascent entry into the grocery biz pull big numbers?

It should be noted that Uber’s Q3 earnings report is coming out the same week that it won a victory at the ballot box in California. Prop. 22, which Uber backed, was approved by the state, allowing the company to keep its drivers classified as independent contractors and not employees. That means it won’t have to pony up for benefits or other protections. While this is good for the company’s bottom line, Prop. 22 could have more unfortunate results overall.

Prop 22’s Success Has Unsettling Implications for Third-Party Delivery’s Power

One certainty we woke up to yesterday is that California had passed Prop. 22, the controversial ballot measure aimed at keeping California gig workers independent contractors.

The success of the measure means that app-based companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart will be exempt from California’s AB 5 law, which requires businesses to classify gig workers as employees. And while tech companies’ Prop 22 victory is limited to California, it could have wide-reaching effects on how companies do business in other states and how they treat their workers.

Quick recap: Prop 22 was created in the wake of California’s Assembly Bill 5, which went into effect on Jan. 1 of this year. Under AB 5, employers must classify independent contractors as employees based on certain criteria, putting those companies on the hook to pay minimum wage, paid sick leave, health insurance, and other benefits. While AB 5 included some exemptions, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and other app-based businesses were not among them.

Hence the fight. In the lead-up to Election Day, proponents of Prop. 22 — which was basically bankrolled by the aforementioned tech companies — argued that having to classify drivers as employees would reduce jobs, limit drivers’ ability to work for multiple companies and ultimately raise costs for consumers. Uber and other app-based businesses spent roughly $200 million on the ballot-measure, making it the most expensive in California history.

By contrast, Prop. 22 opponents spent less than $20 million. They have argued that Prop. 22 exploits workers and undermines job stability.

Had Prop. 22 been voted down, companies like Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, and others would have had to shift their business models, which have been essentially built on the backs of gig workers, or make good on their threats to leave certain states. Instead, Prop 22 passed, and now there’s concern of a ripple effect on laws in other states and on labor standards in general for delivery jobs. Contract workers save companies money, since employers aren’t having to shell out for benefits, so it’s an obviously attractive option for companies. But as EaterSF pointed out yesterday, there is concern that Prop 22 could “usher in a whole new era of businesses taking their labor disputes to voters, instead of resolving them with local or state agencies.”

In California, other industries may also see the successful passing of Prop. 22 as motivation to push for their own exemptions from AB 5. That would mean fewer protections for workers across more industries, and lower standards for labor and worker protections in general.

Speaking of those worker protections: As a concession, Prop 22 will grant some benefits, including a minimum earnings guarantee when a driver is engaged in a delivery or ride (not while they are waiting for a gig). However, Prop. 22 offers no protections to workers in terms of sick leave, unemployment, workers comp or the ability to unionize. 

This lack of protections was a major grief back in March, when the COVID-19 pandemic came Stateside. As one gig worker said at the time, “staying home won’t pay the bills,” even if making deliveries meant potentially spreading the virus or working while sick. That’s no less a catch-22 for gig workers now, with COVID-19 cases breaking record highs as we speak and many expecting the situation to worsen as we get closer to winter. 

Early in the pandemic, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Postmates set up financial assistance funds for workers diagnosed or quarantined because of COVID-19. However, those were short-term measures, and there is no guarantee these companies will offer a similar option if the situation around the pandemic worsens.

Looking ahead, does Prop. 22’s success this week embolden these third-party delivery services to continue their dominance over the future of food delivery? Will the deep pockets of Uber, DoorDash and others get to set the terms for what the delivery market becomes? After all, these companies haven’t exactly been beacons of trustworthy behavior. Do their policies get to become the long-term norm simply because they have more money to fight with?

Consider the commission fees restaurants must pay delivery services in order to use their platforms. These fees can reach as high as 30 percent per transaction and have been an ongoing source of grief since before the pandemic, eating into restaurants’ practically nonexistent margins. Right now, multiple cities across the U.S. have imposed mandatory caps on these fees for the duration of the pandemic. But those emergency measures won’t stay in place forever. And even were fee caps signed into law, it’s not unreasonable to assume delivery services would eventually fight them, via another ballot measure or some other means.

There are many other controversies involving third-party delivery, among them: listing restaurants on delivery platforms without their consent, worker tipping policies, bogus fees, and menu pricing. 

Above all else, Prop. 22’s success shows us that Uber, DoorDash, and the rest of them are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their existing business model — and therefore chances of profitability — intact. That Prop. 22 passed also shows that figuratively kicking and screaming, if accompanied by millions, can get you your own way. Given the untrustworthy history of these tech companies, that point doesn’t bode other areas of delivery that regulators and restaurant industry advocates are working to change.

   

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 Expands Grocery Delivery to Manhattan

Uber is expanding its nascent grocery delivery program into New York City, The New York Post reported this morning with confirmation from Uber.

According to the Post:

New Yorkers who open the Uber or Uber Eats apps will now see a grocery shopping tab, which will use their delivery address to show them what participating shops are available to them. In addition to chains like Gristedes, D’Agostino’s and Westside Market, the app will also be able to send couriers to smaller shops like Sullivan Street Bakery and Dickson’s Farmstand Meats in Chelsea.

Uber has been slowly but steadily adding grocery delivery to its Uber Eats business around the world over the past year. In October 2019, Uber announced it was acquiring a majority stake in Cornershop, a grocery delivery service that covers Central and South America. Earlier this year, Uber entered into a number of grocery delivery partnerships in France, Spain and Brazil. Uber’s grocery ambitions hit the U.S. in July of this year, when Cornershop started delivering groceries in Miami, FL and Dallas, TX.

Online grocery shopping and delivery has seen record numbers this year, thanks to the pandemic. And though the numbers came down from their record highs earlier this summer, the pandemic is surging once again throughout the country as we head into winter and the holidays. This resurgence plus cold and flu season could see those grocery e-commerce numbers tick back up again.

As grim as the thought is, the pandemic’s gaining strength could explain why Uber hopped over most of the East Coast to provide delivery service to New York. During the early days of the pandemic, as grocery stores there struggled to keep up with acute demand for grocery delivery. If COVID hits New York again with any severity, the city will definitely need as many grocery delivery options as it can take.

Uber isn’t the only third-party delivery company getting into groceries, however. DoorDash launched its own on-demand grocery delivery program in August of this year. And, of course, there is Instacart, which raised another $200 million this month (and is suing Uber over Cornershop’s grocery listing) to help solidify its lead in grocery delivery.

Of course, with the ride hailing market depressed by the global pandemic, Uber is more reliant than ever on its Eats business. Growing its grocery business should help Eats grow its much-needed revenues.

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.

Ordrslip Adds Postmates Integration to Its Mobile App Software for Restaurants

Restaurant tech company Ordrslip announced today it has partnered with Postmates to add delivery integration into its mobile app software, according to a company press release sent to The Spoon. Per today’s announcement, Ordrslip’s software lets restaurant customers “create custom-looking whitelabel mobile ordering applications via Ordrslip.”

It’s no secret that, since the pandemic pushed the restaurant industry to off-premises formats, usage of mobile apps for ordering and payments is on the rise. It’s also pretty commonly known at this point that sophisticated apps a la Starbucks are far too expensive and resource-consuming for most independent restaurants and chains to create themselves. Hence the growing selection of tools (see below) various third parties offer to get restaurants the digital properties they need without decimating their already decimated margins.

The Ordrslip approach is this: Ordrslip creates a branded mobile app for the restaurant with all the features needed to fulfill pickup and delivery items, including order-ahead capabilities, payments, iOS and Android compatibility, POS integration (only with Square and Clover for now), and order tracking. You can read the full list of features here. The app looks and functions as if it belongs to the restaurant but is powered by Ordrslip’s softare in the background. As of today, there is the option to add Postmates integration in order to fulfill the last-mile delivery end of the operation.

The promise is that by using Ordrslip with the new Postmates integration, restaurant customers can bypass the controversial per-transaction commission fees they normally get charged by third-party delivery services. Ordrslip pricing is $100/month per location or $1100/year per location, with one-time setup fees of $1,000 and $750, respectively. (The setup fee applies to all locations a restaurant might operate.)  

On the one hand, those are high numbers for already struggling restaurants, which would have to be doing enough delivery to surpass $100/month in commission fees per transaction. On the other, there’s a pandemic happening and folks are staying at home and ordering more delivery. In other words, $100 in commission fees to Grubhub Et al is probably on the low end these days, though restaurants still have to pay some commission to Postmates for delivering the order.

Ordrslip is one of a growing number of companies offering restaurants workarounds to 30 percent commission fees on delivery orders. POS platform Toast, ChowNow, and many others have various tools in the market that let restaurants process orders and payments through a separate platform so they only need to use the delivery service for actual deliveries. Another company, ShiftPixy, bypasses delivery services altogether and provides the drivers itself. And even the delivery services themselves are participating in this trend. Uber Eats is piloting a tool that lets restaurants process orders through their own platforms, though Uber Eats retains the customer data.

Uber Eats also just announced its plans to buy Postmates for $2.65 billion, a deal that is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021. That deal is unlikely at this point to affect a partnership like the one Ordrslip announced today.

Uber Eats Adds Contactless Order and Payment Methods for Dine-In and Takeout

Uber Eats has turned on some new contactless ordering and payment methods according to a story out today in USA Today. The new “Uber Eats Contactless Order Feature” aims to reduce the amount of human-to-human contact for people dining in restaurants or picking up their food.

Customers can either scan a special QR code at participating restaurants or find the restaurant in the Uber Eats app to order and pay for meals. For those eating at the restaurant, the food will be brought out to your table. Those choosing takeout can schedule a time to pick up their food.

The food pickup option is available nationally starting today, and the food delivery to your table for dine-in customers is available at now in Indianapolis, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Vermont, Atlanta, New York City and Washington, D.C.

Adding these types of contactless features is the latest in a series of moves Uber has made to adapt to the new normal caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to implementing contactless delivery, Uber also launched a pilot program that lets its restaurants accept pickup and delivery orders directly through their own websites with no added commission fee for the rest of the year, created a voucher program so companies can buy remote workers lunch during meetings, and developed a mask verification feature for its delivery drivers.

Uber is far from alone in adapting its product to support and accelerate a more contactless meal journey. In fact, any business that has any sort of relationship with a restaurant is getting into the contactless game. Holo Lens makes holographic interactive menus. Order for Me, BBot and even Apple are just three of the many companies with mobile payment solutions, while Keenon Robotics and Bear Robotics are creating robot servers to bring you your food.

As the pandemic continues, contactless payments and delivery will just become table stakes for any restaurant, and we are bound to see even more announcements like this from Uber and others in this space to accommodate.

Food E-Commerce Startup Dunzo Raises $28M

Bengaluru, India-based food delivery startup Dunzo has raised $28 million in what is the first tranche of the company’s Series E round. Entracker was first to report the news, noting that this round was led by Google and LGT Lightstone Aspada with participation from Lightbox, Bhoruka Finance Corporation, 3L Capital, Moving Capital, and Pivot Ventures.

The round follows Dunzo’s $45 million fundraise in October 2019 and brings the company’s total funding to $116.4 million.

Dunzo, which started as a WhatsApp group in 2014 to connect locals to grocery stores and restaurants, has over the years grown into a sizable e-commerce platform that delivers groceries, restaurant meals, and other supplies to customers around India’s major cities. According to Entracker, the company has about 75,000 stores on its platform.

It’s a lucrative, albeit highly competitive, time to be a food delivery startup, with the pandemic keeping more people at home and subsequently raising demand for online groceries and meal orders. Dunzo itself said in April it had seen a 3x increase in growth for food and beverage orders.

Though it’s hardly the only service in India that’s kept busy ferrying all manner of food goods to customers on lockdown. Both Swiggy and Zomato, the country’s major restaurant delivery services, have recently added grocery services. Both have also announced layoffs, too, underscoring the impact COVID-19 has had on business. The Indian food delivery market has also seen some consolidation: In March of this year, Zomato bought Uber Eats’ India business for  $206 million.

Like Swiggy and Zomato, Dunzo has been diversifying its business of late. Entracker reports that the company has recently invested in B2B services to “enable logistics for hyperlocal retailers.” It also currently runs 10 “dark stores” that help local retailers fulfill more orders.

Uber Eats Launches a Paid Advertising Tool for Restaurants

Uber Eats launched a new paid advertising platform today that claims to be “helping restaurants reach more customers,” according to a company blog post. Thing is, it doesn’t seem like it will be all that helpful for the bulk of independent restaurants. And it may in fact be the opposite, at least for the ones who do delivery with Uber Eats.

Here are the basics: Through the new service, simply dubbed Sponsored Listings, Uber Eats restaurant clients can pay to have their business name appear at the top of the app in relevant user searches. Restaurants can set up a Sponsored campaign through their Uber Eats dashboard, designating the intended audience (e.g., “new customers”) and a weekly budget spend. Restaurants pay an amount each time a customer clicks on their ad. (It varies from one restaurant to the next.) They can also start and stop their campaigns any time. 

Uber Eats says that the program is available to both chain restaurants and independents. Which leads us back to the debate around whether or not this new service will be of any actual value to most restaurants. 

We’re at a time in the history of the restaurant biz when paying for advertising is not top priority for the majority of businesses — many of whom are struggling to even keep the lights on. With paper-thin margins made even thinner by the shutdowns and reduced capacity mandates, pay-per-click advertising, even if it’s just $50 per week, is not always possible. Independent restaurants already typically pay more than chains in commission fees on Uber Eats.

At the same time, many chain restaurants, especially major QSRs, have managed to weather the pandemic (and even thrive during it), thanks largely to their built-in to-go formats. It’s safe to argue these restaurants could swing that $50 per week for paid advertising.

Looking at those two scenarios together, it seems like Uber Eats has created a situation in which smaller, independent restaurants will get pushed further and further down in listings because they can’t pay, making it difficult for customers to discover them and translating into lower sales overall for the business. It adds color to the nightmare I frequently have of living in a world where my only restaurant options are Panda Express and Chipotle.

Uber is at least acting cognizant of this. Along with today’s announcement about the Sponsored Listings launch, the company also said it will put $25 million towards “marketing credits” to “qualified US restaurants.” It made no mention of what qualifies a restaurant for the credits or now much credit a business can reasonably expect to get.

Of course, paying for better visibility is a basic business practice, and Uber Eats is hardly the first online service to run sponsored listings. (Been to Amazon lately?) This morning’s news just might have been a little more digestible if Eats had stuck to the basic facts. Instead, it’s positioned Sponsored Listings as a way of being helpful to businesses when the service will in all likelihood further drive a wedge between the haves and have nots of the restaurant biz.

Deliveroo and Waitrose Launch a 30-Minute Grocery Delivery Trial

Following similar recent moves from other third-party delivery services, Deliveroo is expanding its presence in the world of online grocery shopping. At the tail-end of last week, grocery chain Waitrose announced it will pilot a 12-week program with Deliveroo to get groceries to customers around the UK in as little as 30 minutes.

The news comes just as Waitrose’s longstanding deal with online grocery retailer Ocado comes to an end. From Tuesday, September 1, Ocado will instead deliver groceries from Waitrose rival Marks & Spencer. 

Deliveroo will ferry more than 500 Waitrose items to customers “in as little as 30 minutes,” according to the Waitrose press release. Customers will be able to place orders via Deliveroo from one hour after the shop opens to one hour before it closes. Waitrose says the partnership is meant to “compliment” its own two-hour grocery delivery service.

The Guardian noted over the weekend that Waitrose has seen more than 100,000 extra orders for online groceries since the UK’s pandemic-induced lockdown started. Online grocery orders across the UK have almost doubled thanks to the pandemic. It’s a similar story to what the U.S. is currently experiencing where grocery e-commerce sales hit $7.2 billion in June.

Given all that, it’s no surprise that third-party restaurant delivery services like Deliveroo are diversifying their sales channels to include grocery. Deliveroo, in particular, has struggled to keep business strong during the pandemic as restaurants shutter permanently. For example, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s antitrust watchdog, finally approved Deliveroo’s long-scrutinized deal with Amazon on the grounds that Deliveroo would have had to exit the UK food delivery market without the Seattle giant’s investment.

Adding more grocery services is one way to make up for some of the lost restaurant sales. New sales channels may also give third-party delivery services a fighting chance a profitability, something that keeps getting eroded by fee caps, battles over worker classification, and other regulatory issues.

It’s a narrative we’re familiar with in the U.S., too. Uber Eats now delivers groceries, and DoorDash just announced its own grocery delivery service in addition to its partnerships with convenience stores.

The initial Deliveroo-Waitrose trial, which also starts September 1, will serve about half a million households and, if successful, will extend to more locations in the future.

Report: DoorDash May Go Public in 2020 Amid Broader Delivery Consolidation

DoorDash could file for an IPO as soon as the fourth quarter of 2020, according to “sources familiar with the matter” who spoke to Bloomberg.

The third-party delivery company is reportedly “taking steps” to go public in November or December of this year through a traditional IPO, rather than a direct listing, which the company had considered earlier this year.

The potential IPO comes at a time when the third-party food delivery sector is seeing a steady stream of mergers and acquisitions, from Just Eat Takeaway.com buying up Grubhub to the more recent deal from Uber to snap up Postmates for $2.65 billion.

DoorDash itself has largely stayed out of that M&A activity. The company acquired Caviar for $400 million about a year ago. Since then, DoorDash has been largely focused on diversifying its business. It launched its first ghost kitchen facility in October 2019. And since the start of the pandemic, DoorDash has teamed up with convenience stores like 7-Eleven, launched its own “ghost convenience store,” and, just last week, started an on-demand delivery [— LINK — ] service for groceries.

Those moves make sense in light of the fact that the restaurant industry has been one of the hardest-hit business types by the pandemic. Demand for third-party delivery may be up, but many restaurants — both independents and large chains — are closing down, which means DoorDash may need new lines of business to have a shot of being profitable (which, according to Bloomberg, it is not).

Like other restaurant third-party delivery companies, DoorDash is also navigating a substantial amount of controversy. In April, DoorDash, Grubhub, and others were the subject of a class-action lawsuit alleging third-party delivery companies used their market power to push restaurant prices higher during the pandemic. In June, the San Francisco DA sued DoorDash over worker misclassification, and if a ballot measure that would loosen restrictions over gig worker classification in California does not pass in November, DoorDash (and others) will face another threat to its chances for profitability. That’s to say nothing of commission fee caps, much-maligned tipping policies, and other gripes a growing number of the general public has against third-party delivery companies.

DoorDash was last valued at nearly $16 billion and, throughout the pandemic, has been an “essential service” more and more folks are using as the future of restaurant dining rooms remains uncertain.

Like everything else these days, the timeline for the company’s IPO could change based on, among other factors, the trajectory of the pandemic.