Deliveroo, Foodora, UberEats… it’s almost impossible to make your way through Sydney, Melbourne – or many other major metropolitan cities around the world – without passing dozen upon dozen of brightly colored cyclists (or cars) and those instantly recognizable, big square boxes.
While home delivery has typically been the realm of the cheap (and often, by the time it reaches you – cold) local pizza, in is now possible to access a broad spectrum of variety from the comfort of your couch. And the customer is responding. The boom of home delivery services – many offering speed guarantees – has raised the question of whether or not we could be facing the beginning of the end for the restaurant industry. Indeed, many high profile and high-quality restaurants have joined the delivery scene; it’s no longer merely for the local mum-and-dad operated fast food joint.
In Melbourne and soon to be Sydney Endulj is a prime example of this, presenting a collaboration of “curated” dining from some of the south and centrals trendiest eateries – with these select dishes prepared not by the restaurants themselves, but following their recipes in a shared off-site facility. Efficiency, operational cost-effectiveness, and ideally, a fresher product and better service for the consumer is the goal.
So will this massive uptake in home delivery really be the death of restaurants and cafes?
We feel the answer is “No, but…”
While delivery services are increasingly popular, the reason that people order does not fill the same needs as the reasons that people go to a restaurant. While it’s true that we have access to more choice, better quality, and faster delivery, it is still primarily a convenience service, and you still run the risk of the food being late, cold, or having some mistake which it is then too difficult to rectify compared to simply asking your waiter for your missing avocado (for example) when in a restaurant. Of course, these sorts of issues are up to us as industry providers to take care with, but it would be delusional to say they never occur.
Conversely, people go to restaurants to spend time with friends and family in a convivial atmosphere, wine and dine a new potential partner, celebrate occasions, build business relationships, and generally have an experience above and beyond their typical day to day life. Especially with the rising costs of real estate and increasingly small apartments – especially for young professionals – a switch from restaurants to home-entertaining reliant on delivery services is unlikely to happen any time soon.
However, what the uptake in home delivery does do is create a culture where purchased foods are a more frequent event, distributing consumers discretionary spend across more occasions. What this could mean is that while in-venue dining may not necessarily drop off, consumers may become more price conscious and have less to spend when some of this budget is consumed by food delivered on a more regular basis to their homes.