Food Delivery Expects No Summer Slowdown

As Americans head into Fourth of July barbecues and related celebrations, they are showing few, if any, signs that they’re declaring independence from the takeout and delivery services that have surged in popularity during COVID-19’s social distancing.

Need proof? Just look at the sums that popular delivery options are fetching.

Uber Technology is reportedly offering $2.6 billion for Postmates – and is facing competition from at least one rival, a private equity firm.

DoorDash, the country’s largest deliverer of restaurant meals, could be valued as high as $15 billion following a likely infusion of capital from existing investors.

And then there was last month’s news that Just Eat Takeaway was eating Grubhub in an all-stock deal valued at $7.3 billion.

The proof of the new services’ popularity isn’t only in what restaurants and delivery services are doing, but in what they’re not doing amid surging demand – which is overloading systems in some cases.

Taco Bell joined the list of restaurants overwhelmed by online orders on Tuesday (June 30) after extending the scope of its established “Taco Tuesday” free food offer.

The interest among established buyers in growing food delivery operations is far more than a U.S. phenomenon. U.K. regulators recently approved Amazon’s $575 million purchase of a 16 percent stake in Deliveroo, a London-based food delivery business that operates in both England and Australia.

Another sign of the new food is the rise, albeit with some early problems, of “ghost kitchens,” which are equipped kitchens intended only for home delivery.

One of the wilder aspects of the burgeoning food delivery business is the rising application of robots in the space Food Management News reported on Thursday (July 2) that a California company’s fully automated food delivery trucks are expanding beyond the borders of Northern Arizona University into Flagstaff.

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