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Is Deliveroo’s IPO a Turning Point for Third-Party Delivery’s Labor Force?

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U.K.-based Deliveroo is the latest third-party delivery service getting ready to debut on the public market, with plans to go public in early April. As usual, the move comes with the standard buffet of controversies surrounding third-party delivery services, particularly those around pay and protections for workers actually doing the last mile of the food delivery. Unlike usual, the labor issue is actually making would-be investors think twice this time.

Six major U.K. investors, including Aberdeen Standard, BMO Global, and Aviva Investors, said last week that they will not participate in Deliveroo’s initial public market, citing working conditions for the delivery service’s couriers and drivers. 

Like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and others, Deliveroo classifies the folks doing the actual food delivery as independent contractors, and therefore isn’t required to offer minimum wage, paid time off, or paid sick leave. As we’ve written ad nauseam, this is problematic for many reasons, not the least of which is that many workers struggle to make a living wage off these delivery gigs, as evidenced by a recent report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that found some Deliveroo riders earn as little as £2 ($2.76 USD) per hour during a shift.

What’s turning investors off, however, is more than just an ethical issue. Some apparently see a business built on gig workers as a risky model because of the regulatory scrutiny that model is getting of late, at least in the U.K. and in Europe. Case in point: Uber recently lost a fight against the U.K. supreme court and must now classify its drivers as employees, not independent contractors. For now, that doesn’t impact the company’s Eats business, but it’s been enough to, in the words of investment forecasters, “dampen the mood” around Deliveroo’s IPO. 

Deliveroo itself admitted in its investment prospectus that having to reclassify its workers as employees would have a “material impact” on the business. Part of the reason third-party services, including Deliveroo, have been able to achieve such high valuations in the past is because their businesses are built off the idea of minimizing labor costs. Paying drivers a minimum wage and other benefits eats into those costs, and puts the idea of steady profitability further out of reach. Additionally, Deliveroo suggested having to change its worker classifications would also impact its ability to operate in certain markets. 

The chances of Deliveroo having to reclassify its workers seems high. Just Eat Takeaway.com, another major food delivery service in the U.K. and Europe, as already pledged to do away with the gig worker model. The aforementioned Uber fight with the U.K. supreme court also doesn’t bode well for Deliveroo.

What is yet to be determined is whether this will have a ripple effect across the pond. Some recent events, like California passing Prop 22 in November of last year, seem to suggest gig workers are losing the fight against third-party delivery. On the other hand, Just Eat Takeaway.com has plans to acquire U.S.-based Grubhub, which means it may eventually bring its employee-based model Stateside.

Right now there seem to be more questions than answers surrounding the fate of third-party delivery services. But as more countries and governments take a harder stance against the gig-worker model, and as more investors think twice before backing such ventures, we may finally start to see the balance of power start to shift in favor of the folks on whose backs these businesses are actually built.

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

Starbucks aims to become carbon neutral with its coffee by 2030, the company said this week. The Seattle-based coffee giant says it will do this with things like precision agronomy and climate-resistant coffee plant varieties.

Yum Brands, parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, has acquired omnichannel solutions company Tictuk Technologies. Tictuk is known for its “conversational commerce,” which will allow customers to place food orders via social media, SMS, email, and many other formats. 

Restaurant Group Brinker International this week announced a Google Maps and Google Search integration for the company’s It’s Just Wings virtual brand, in a bid to further digitize the off-premises experience.

Postmates X Spun Out of Uber to Become Serve Robotics

Uber has officially spun out its Postmates X division to become its own standalone company now called Serve Robotics. The news was first reported by TechCrunch and confirms rumblings about such a move reported back in January.

Uber acquired Postmates for $2.65 billion last year, which included the Postmates X robotics unit. The Serve delivery robot is an autonomous cooler-sized rover robot currently making deliveries around the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

According to TechCrunch, Serve Robotics has raised an undisclosed seed round of funding led by the VC firm Neo, with participation from Uber, Lee Jacobs, Long Journey Ventures, Western Technology Investment and other investors. Serve Robotics will be led by Ali Kashani, who headed up Postmates X, will have 60 employees, and will be headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, and Vancouver, Canada.

Delivery robots like Serve are definitely on the rise as a number of startups come to market around the world. In the U.S. Starship, Kiwibot and Refraction all have robots making deliveries. In Russia there’s Yandex, in South Korea there’s Woowa Brothers, and in Turkey there’s Delivers AI. (For more, check out our Delivery Robot Market Report available to our Spoon Plus members.)

With all these robotic solutions plus other autonomous vehicle options, Uber doesn’t need to have its own full-stack robotic delivery solution. As I wrote last month:

“…as Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently explained on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast, his company is in the networking business. Khosrowshahi doesn’t think Uber needs to create the technology uses, it just needs access to the best technology that allows it to facilitate deliveries and ridesharing. That’s one reason Uber offloaded its autonomous driving unit at the end of last year.”

Additionally, spinning off Serve Robotics means that Uber itself does not need to devote resources to figuring out the patchwork of state, county and city laws when it comes to actually getting commercial autonomous delivery vehicles on public sidewalks and streets. The flip side of that however, is that dealing with this patchwork of regulations is something Serve will have to do on its own.

Uber Q4: Delivery Up 150% Year-Over-Year as It Expands Beyond Restaurants

Uber unveiled its earnings this week for the fourth quarter of 2020. Its food delivery business remains the strongest part of the business, a point hardly surprising since we’re still in the midst of a pandemic and restaurant dining rooms remain closed in many places.

A few of the latest stats, according to the company earnings call yesterday, include:

  • Uber reported $3.17 billion in total revenue from October through December, 2020.
  • Q4 gross bookings for delivery grew 128 percent and reached a $44 billion run rate in December.
  • Revenue “more than tripled” from last year and grew 19 percent compared to the third quarter of 2020.

On this week’s call, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also called out Uber’s plans to expand delivery into areas beyond traditional restaurants. “It’s become clear that the pandemic has increased consumers’ appetite for on-demand delivery of not just food, but all goods, and we take a major step to address this enormous opportunity,” he said.

Recent(ish) acquisitions by Uber support that statement. At the end of 2019, the company acquired majority ownership of online grocery Cornershop and in 2020 expanded its grocery delivery services. Uber’s more recent $2.65 billion acquisition of rival service Postmates gives it access to the latter’s delivery-as-a-service business that connects customers with Walmart, 7-Eleven, Apple, and other stores. Just last week, Uber also nabbed alcohol-delivery service Drizly.  

“These new initiatives will remain an investment priority going forward,” Khosrowshahi said on the call.

Overall, Uber’s losses are narrowing. For all of 2020, net losses totaled $6.77 billion, which is a roughly 20 percent improvement from the $8.51 billion in 2019.

Uber Buys Alcohol Delivery Service Drizly for $1.1 Billion

Uber announced today that it is acquiring online alcohol marketplace and delivery service Drizly for roughly $1.1 billion in stock and cash. Prior to the acquisition, Drizly had raised $119.6 million in funding.

According to the press announcement, Drizly operates in more than 1,400 cities across most of the U.S. The company works with thousands of local booze sellers to facilitate orders and delivery of beer, wine and spirits.

Uber said that more than 90 percent of the price paid to Drizly stockholders will be in stock, with the remaining balance paid in cash. Once the acquisition is complete, Drizly will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Uber. Drizly’s marketplace will eventually get integrated into the Uber Eats app and also keep its own titular app.

The move further strengthens Uber’s biggest moneymaker right now — delivery. The pandemic, of course, crushed Uber’s ridesharing business as various states of lockdown/quarantine/movement restrictions negated the ability of people to go anywhere.

But all this quarantining has been a boon for Uber’s food delivery business. In its 2020 Q3 earnings report, Uber said that adjusted net revenue for delivery grew 190 percent year-over-year, hitting $1.14 billion in revenue. As such, the company has spent the past year bolstering delivery, acquiring rival delivery service Postmates for $2.65 billion last summer, and expanding beyond just restaurant food and into grocery delivery.

In addition to eating at home more often, the pandemic, for good or bad, pushed a lot more people into drinking. As of September 2020, Nielesn reported that total sales of alcohol outside bars and restaurants were up 24 percent during the pandemic. At that same time, Drizly told NPR that its sales were up 350 percent year over year.

With the Drizly acquisition, Uber stands to gain in the short term from the continued closure or limited capacity of bars and restaurants across many states. Beyond the immediate closures, since we’ve been dealing with COVID life for practically a year now, new habits have formed including getting alcohol delivered to your door. So getting a bottle of vodka brought to you at home pretty close to on-demand isn’t that strange an idea any longer.

And even though the rates of COVID infections are currently going down in the U.S. and vaccines are being deployed, who knows what going to bars will be like when things return to normal. Will people be skittish to be shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of people yelling for prolonged periods of time? After being cooped up for so long, there’s certainly a pent up desire to do so. But there will also be a desire for smaller, more controllable gatherings at our homes. Gatherings that will definitely need some booze.

Uber Lays Off More Than 180 Employees of Postmates

Uber has laid off about 15 percent, or roughly 185 people, from its Postmates division, according to a report this weekend from the New York Times. The layoffs come just a couple months after Uber completed the $2.65 billion acquisition of the rival delivery service.

The NYT noted that the cuts are part of the integration process of Postmates with Uber Eats. On the front, consumer-facing end, Postmates will still function as its own app, separate from Eats. However, it will now share back-end infrastructure with Eats’ existing technologies and operations.  

Postmates founder Bastian Lehmann is among the individuals that made a decision to depart the company. Other executives “will leave with multimillion exit packages,” according to NYT sources, who added that more exists could be possible in the coming months. 

For now, Eats remains Uber’s key money-making business, having overtaken the company’s ride-hailing service last year in terms of revenues. The pandemic, of course, helped the popularity of the Eats Business as more consumers stayed home and ordered delivery and the restaurant drastically shifted focus to off-premises formats in response.

Because of that shift, food delivery is more popular than ever, and Uber faces significant competition from services like DoorDash, which went public in December, and Grubhub, which was recently snapped up by global delivery service Just Eat Takeaway.com.

To remain competitive, Uber has made a number of cuts in recent months to parts of its business. For example, it got rid of its autonomous vehicle division and is spinning off Postmates’ robotics division into a separate entity.

Update: An earlier version of this story said that Postmates founder Bastian Lehmann was laid off. Lehmann has made the decision to depart the company on his own, according to an Uber spokesperson.

Report: Uber Looking to Spin Off Postmates X Delivery Robot Biz

As part of its acquisition of Postmates last year, Uber got into the delivery robot business. Now, according to a report in TechCrunch, Uber is planning to get out of the robo-biz by spinning off Postmates X (the robotics division of the company) into a separate company.

From TechCrunch:

Postmates X, the robotics division of the on-demand delivery startup that Uber acquired last year for $2.65 billion, is seeking investors in its bid to become a separate company, according to several people familiar with the plans.

The new spinout is being called Serve Robotics, named after the companies’ autonomous, cooler-sized Serve robot, which was making deliveries in Los Angeles throughout much of 2020. More recently, Postmates Serve was enlisted by the Pink Dot market to make deliveries in West Hollywood.

TechCrunch reports that Serve Robotics would retain the IP and assets, and Uber would keep a 25 percent stake in the company.

Given how the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing restaurants and grocers to adopt more contactless delivery methods, it may seem like an odd time for Uber to get out of the delivery robot business.

As we’ve been chronicling, autonomous delivery robots are popping up all over the globe. Starship has been doing deliveries on college campuses for more than a year, and expanded to grocery delivery in Modesto, CA. Kiwibot partnered with the City of San Jose for robot restaurant deliveries there. Then there’s Yandex in Russia, Delivers AI in Turkey, and Woowa Brothers in Seoul, South Korea.

But as Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently explained on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast, his company is in the networking business. Khosrowshahi doesn’t think Uber needs to create the technology uses, it just needs access to the best technology that allows it to facilitate deliveries and ridesharing. That’s one reason Uber offloaded its autonomous driving unit at the end of last year.

While the use of robotics is definitely on the rise around the world, there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome before they become mainstream. Regulations and production scale are two biggies. Right now there are a patchwork of rules around autonomous delivery that vary from city to city and state to state. Even as those get ironed out, scaling robots to a number where we see them across the country is still a huge undertaking.

Uber pushing those issues off on to a separate company means Uber can focus more on its own delivery and ridesharing businesses. Uber can then just license the robot technology to facilitate its food delivery.

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.

California Passes Prop. 22, Leaving Gig Workers as Independent Contractors

In a win for third-party delivery services and other big tech companies, California has passed Proposition 22, ensuring gig workers will remain independent contractors rather than employees of these companies.

Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, and other tech companies that use gig workers to fulfill the last mile of food deliveries backed Prop. 22, which is the most expensive ballot-measure campaign in California history.

The measure, a response to California’s Assembly Bill 5, which was signed into law last year, exempts companies from having to actually employ drivers and in doing so pay for healthcare, sick leave, and other benefits.

Uber, DoorDash, and other companies that rely on gig workers have long said that classifying drivers as employees would drastically change the way the companies do business. Less talked about but just as obvious is the point that classifying drivers as employees would undercut delivery and rideshare services’ still-elusive profitability. In August, Uber and Lyft even threatened to pull out of California after a judge ordered the companies to reclassify their employees in keeping with AB 5.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent an email last night thanking drivers, saying, “The future of independent work is more secure because so many drivers like you spoke up,”

Prop 22. opponents, such as labor groups, argue that the measure allows Uber and other tech companies to skirt basic obligations to workers, including minimum wage, health insurance, and paid sick leave. That last item is an especially hot-button issue at a time when COVID-19 cases are on the rise once again.

Gig Workers Rising, which opposed Prop. 22, called the measure “a loss for our democracy that could open the door to other attempts by corps to write their own laws.”

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.

Brazil’s iFood Delivery Service Launches an E-Bike Program for Couriers

Brazil-based delivery service iFood announced today it has launched an electric bike program for its couriers in partnership with mobility company Tembici, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. The program has launched in first-pilot phase, and will provide e-bikes, manual bikes (courtesy of Bike Sampa), and other amenities to couriers working for the iFood delivery service.

The program will be available for a flat weekly fee of R$9.90 (~$1.76 USD). That includes 24/7 access to manual bicycles through Bike Samba’s Bike Itaú app. Bike withdrawals are limited to four-hour time blocks.

Couriers that want more bells ’n’ whistles as well as access to electric bikes will pay a little more. Access to electric bikes costs an extra R$2 (~$0.36 USD) per day. That fee includes up to two trips per day lasting up to four hours each, with a four-hour interval between them. (An additional R$5 charge is included for each hour.) Today’s press release notes that bikes can go 25 km/h (15.5 mph) and have a battery range of 60 km (37 miles) as well as a pedal assistance feature.

In addition to bikes, the program will also provide what it calls an “iFood Pedal Support Point,” which is a physical location at which couriers can check out and return the bikes. The facility will also provide restrooms, water and coffee, a cell phone-charging station, and a dining area. Couriers also get masks, hand sanitizer, and other safety and hygiene items. Use of the facility costs an additional R$2 per day, separate from the fees mentioned above.

Finally, couriers that join iFood Pedal will have access to the program’s Responsa Pedal digital education course.

Providing delivery workers with more bike access seems an obvious way to fulfill more deliveries in a place like São Paulo, which is Latin America’s most densely populated city. The addition of the e-bike option could also speed up delivery times, allowing workers to complete more orders within their given timeframe and make more money. 

We had similar thoughts back in 2018 when Uber bought e-bike service Jump — though that story ended with Uber offloading Jump to Lime in May of this year. That said, Uber never formally integrated the e-bike service with its Eats business.

On the other hand, iFood is merely partnering with Tembici, not buying it, and the new program may turn out to be a much more financially sustainable endeavor that makes mobility easier for more couriers. 

Since the iFood Pedal program is in pilot stage, its availability is currently limited to a select number of couriers in São Paulo. iFood said that by the end of this year, the project plans to have more than 500 bicycles on the streets of that city.

Uber Eats Is Not Bailing On California

California imposed an order this week that, for a minute there, led us all to believe Uber’s food delivery business in that state was on the rocks.

Spoiler alert: it’s totally not.

Recap: On Monday, a California judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering that Uber (along with Lyft) reclassify its drivers as employees in keeping with the state’s AB5, which was signed into law in January. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi then took to the airwaves to tell us all the company will likely have to temporarily shut down service in California if the court does not overturn the ruling.

As is usually the case when we talk about third-party delivery services, there’s fine print, which Eater SF promptly dug up. An Uber spokesperson confirmed to the publication that the shutdown would only apply to the company’s rideshare business, and that Uber Eats — now Uber’s biggest business — would continue “as is.”

I can’t really think of a better way of putting it than in Eater writer Eve Batey’s own words: “Uber’s threat to take their ball and go home if forced to comply with California law really only applies to a ball that, right now, isn’t the one that the other kids want to play with all that much.”

Eats currently generates more revenue than Rides, according to Uber’s second-quarter earnings report. That makes sense, seeing as the world has been in a pandemic-induced lockdown of late, and even with restrictions lifting in places, average consumers are just not going out as much. They are, however, ordering a ton of delivery meals from restaurants. Gross bookings for Eats were $6.96 billion in Q2, which was up 113 percent year-over-year and up 54 percent over Q1 2020.

Uber also recently struck a $2.65 billion deal to acquire fellow third-party delivery company Postmates — a service that just happens to be number one in Los Angeles, a city that just happens to be the second most populated one in the U.S. Yanking the plug on California, even temporarily, would make the deal pointless. Uber might have ethical flaws in its business model, but its leaders aren’t dumb.

Besides, they’ll get a chance to continue the fight to keep its delivery drivers and couriers as contract workers come November, when Californians vote on Proposition 22, which would exempt rideshare and delivery drivers from being considered employees. Needless to say, tech companies are all-in on this one.

But if regulators continue to scrutinize third-party delivery practices, and consumers continue to rely on off-premises meals while restrictions around in-house restaurant dining room remain in place, it seems only a matter of time before Uber et al. go from the frying pan to the fire with food delivery. 

Maybe then we can take eloquently worded threats to shut down seriously. 

Accelerating the Drive Thru

Of late, there’s been much ado about the drive-thru, with major restaurant chains like Shake Shack and Chipotle all announcing an increased focus on the format.

So it wasn’t too surprising this week to get new data showing the drive-thru is far and away the most popular restaurant “experience” among consumers. A new survey from Bluedot and research firm SeeLevel HX found that 74 percent of respondents said they have visited the drive-thru “the same amount or more often than usual” compared to 43 percent in April. Those consumers surveyed also named drive-thru “the safest” of the to-go formats polled in the report.

It’s all a bit of a no-brainer if you ask me. If you’ve hung around inside a restaurant lately waiting for your pickup order, you’ll know the experience is often tense and confusing. Meanwhile, curbside pickup is still so new for most restaurants that operational kinks have yet to be worked out. That makes drive-thru, a decades-old format, seemingly the safest and fastest way to collect your grub at a time when dining at a restaurant is a no-go for many consumers.

But drive thrus could be faster. A lot faster. In this week’s survey, 81 percent said waiting more than 10 minutes in the drive-thru is too long.

As mobile ordering increases in restaurants and more chains reformat their brick-and-mortar locations to accommodate drive-thru, speed of service will need to be at the top of the priority list.

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

  • A new survey by Oracle Food and Beverage found that 59 percent of U.S. consumers and 47 percent in the U.K. “plan to dine-out as soon as they are able.” Forty percent in the U.S. and 39 percent in the U.K. would feel “safer” using a digital menu from their own device. Another 35 percent in the U.S. and 31 percent in the U.K. had similar feelings about digital payments. 
  • Mobile platform Mad Mobile has acquired restaurant tech company CAKE, best known for its POS system. Mad Mobile hopes to use the acquisition to create a next-gen POS designed for mobile-first restaurant experiences. 
  • For more on the future of ridesharing, which is usually an indicator of what’s to come for food delivery, check out this podcast from Axios Re:Cap. 

This is the web version of our newsletter. Sign up today to get updates on the rapidly changing nature of the food tech industry.

Just Eat Takeaway.com to Stop Using Gig Workers in Europe

Just Eat Takeaway.com just made its sentiments known about how to classify gig workers — but not in the way you’d expect from a third-party delivery service. Company boss Jitse Groen told BBC this week that Just Eat Takeaway.com will “end” gig working in its operations in Europe.

“We’re a large multinational company with quite a lot of money and we want to insure our people,” he said. “We want to be certain they do have benefits, that we do pay taxes on those workers.” 

“Large multinational company” aptly describes Just Eat Takeaway.com these days. The company itself is the product of Netherlands-based Takeaway.com’s recent acquisition of the U.K.’s Just Eat. And in June, the newly formed company announced it would acquire Grubhub, creating the largest food delivery service in the world outside of China.

All that M&A means more hiring. But this hasn’t been a particularly easy time for gig workers, in Europe or elsewhere. With the pandemic keeping more folks at home, delivery orders are up. That demand renders the folks driving or biking the food to customers frontline workers at higher risk of exposure to the coronavirus. Under the status of gig worker, these individuals do not have access to certain workplace protections (e.g., paid sick leave) they would as employees.

Just Eat Takeaway.com’s changes to worker classification may only apply to Europe right now, but the company has operations all over the globe. The aforementioned Grubhub deal will soon give the company a presence in the U.S., too, where the debate over gig workers is especially heated right now. Just this week, a California judge ordered Uber and Lyft to reclassify its contract workers as employee. For Uber, that would mean changing the underlying model around its Eats business, too.

Groen did not say when the change for its his company’s European workers would take place. And how Just Eat Takeaway.com handles U.S.-based workers once the Grubhub deal kicks in remains to be seen. 

While Just Eat Takeaway.com looks to remove many of the downsides of gig worker jobs, others are spending millions to fight any changes to the system. At some point a new standard around benefits for these workers might emerge from the fight. Let’s hope it’s one that values human health and well-being over food delivery’s ever-elusive path to profitability.