Today in Food Commerce: Uber Eats Partners with bp; Food Prices Create Anxiety

Today in food commerce, rising food costs change menus and eating habits, and Uber Eats announces a major partnership with bp. Plus, McCormick’s financial results reveal the stickiness of pandemic cooking trends.

Delivery Software Helps Bakery Deliver Wedding Cakes in Time for the Big Event

To help Patty’s Cakes and Desserts meet high demand, the company uses delivery software that plans the deliveries, provides tracking information to customers and facilitates payments for those who would like to tip the driver. 

“The granularity just in knowing all those data points — that makes or breaks deliveries,” Philip Gomez, co-owner of Patty’s Cakes and Desserts, tells PYMNTS in an interview.

Rising Food Costs Create Anxiety, Change Menus

Around the world, rising food prices are forcing cooks, home and professional alike, to reconsider how they prepare their foods. Bloomberg reported Monday (March 28) that rising costs of everything from meat to feed is making it difficult for producers to keep up with demand, making many vegetable oils unaffordable and making some food businesses switch up the formula to cut back on high-cost items.

As Competitors Develop In-House Digital C-Stores, Uber Eats Expands Third-Party Convenience Offerings

As leading food delivery aggregators seek out ways to drive more revenue from their costly driver networks, many are finding ways to grow their non-restaurant offerings. Uber, for its part, announced Tuesday (March 29) that it has entered into a partnership with bp to have 3,000 of the latter’s convenience stores available on Uber Eats around the world by 2025.

McCormick Net Sales Growth Shows Continuation of Home Cooking Trend

Hobbies and habits picked up during quarantine continue to affect consumers’ cooking behavior, according to spices, seasonings and flavorings company McCormick and Company. On a call with analysts Tuesday (March 29) discussing the company’s first-quarter 2022 results, Chairman, President and CEO Lawrence Kurzius stated that sales “continued to reflect the sustained shift to higher at-home consumption” relative to before the pandemic.