Global Revolution of Online Food Delivery apps (Latest)

Food delivery apps (FDAs) have, to say the least, taken over the food industry and flipped the way the community functions. The food-delivery ecosystem is growing rapidly, it surprises society to realize how large it's achieved in such a short time. Within a blink of an eye, the entire world has been pushed indoors and is forced to adapt to the online platform. Though the existence of food delivery apps initiated far before the fall of the pandemic, it's obvious that this incident prompted its growth heavily. Food delivery apps have been taking control over the way people view and interact with restaurants and creating a whole new system of communication between consumers and businesses.

● HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Surprisingly enough, food delivery systems can be traced back to Ancient Rome (753 B.C - 476 A.D). As lovers of what is now called 'fast food', Romans established Thermopolium (fast food restaurants) that served meals in a counter, and the food was stored in a large clay pot to keep it hot and fresh - this methodology closely resembles what we now practice as food deliveries.

From there, food delivery took many shapes and forms, such as Indian Dabbawalas - people who delivered food through cycles during the time of our colonial rule. Many other forms that exist to date are food deliveries through phone calls, flash advertisements on TV, and food trucks that go around the town. The different cultures around the world and their unique ways of food delivery systems are often very fascinating to look at. The history has now tumbled onto online food delivery apps that are being accepted like never before by the consumers. World Wide Waiter or Waiter.com which was founded in 1995 was the first to introduce online food delivery systems into society. A little before that in 1994, Pizza Hut delivered its first pizza through the internet.

By the late 2000s, online food delivery became extremely popular and overtook the traditional phone call delivery service. From then to now, FDAs have continued to grow and spread across the globe, creating revolutionary food systems.

● ITS GROWTH RATE

Just in the last five years, online food delivery systems have grown over 20% of their normal expectancy - making the industry develop about a minimum of 40% of its total restaurant sales within the next 3 years. With the crowd being restricted from in-house dining, the natural adaptation of the online mode took place creating a perfect time for businesses to explore new opportunities, study the market and invest appropriately.

If we speak numbers, roughly 42% of the food delivery market takes place online, and it brings with it an attractive growth rate of 3.7% to the industry. This profit steps from an obvious set of qualities that connects it to technology, social media, and the ever-present digital revolution.

From being an additional outlet for restaurants, they have grown into a business of creating employment opportunities and encouraging start-ups across the state. While there are collaborative outlets such as Swiggy and Zomato, there also exist companies that create an independent application to wholly dedicate the attention of the consumers to their brand, Dominos and Starbucks serve as good examples of this.

● THE TURNAROUND OF FOOD BUSINESS MODELS

It's no secret that the way people eat has completely changed, this new path has created endless opportunities for the consumers to enjoy convenience, dine with comfort and discover the multitude of facilities this dimension of the industry offer.

From scheduling deliveries, communicating the preferred delivery patterns, and relishing the variety of deals and offers that flow in and out of the application, it has created a new face of interaction. Business between consumers and restaurants rarely happens like it used to traditionally happen. This change continues to shape the food delivery web and grow more inclusive. It portrays a collaborative work of cloud kitchens, aggregators, restaurants where the industry is looked at more as a collective unit that erases the competition boundaries and shows a more empathetic perspective of them where consumer satisfaction is seen as the initial priority.

It furthermore creates a clear system that benefits both the consumers and businesses; while customers can choose from an ocean of options, dine wherever, easily track their food journey and pay however businesses are provided with a structures detail of the order, can reduce in house expenses, gain feedback on their product efficiently and promote their business effectively and at a cheaper cost.

● CUSTOMERS’ MINDSET

The expectations that customers held before the emergence of online delivery platforms have changed and have evolved into wishing an online dimension to every aspect of the market - which is expected to happen following the rise of the digital age. Having an online medium and providing online delivery services have become more of a must than an additional outlet for the F&B businesses. Once met with the convenience of the online mode, it's highly unlikely that people will go back to the traditional ways of interacting with the food community, at least not entirely. This is especially true when we understand the age group that contributes most, about 70%, to the online deliveries- ranges from 21 to 36. This makes the youth of the society that shape and set the standards for the present and upcoming society due to their high engaging quality.

In short, the high rate in online order preferences will only continue to increase leaving all the restaurants without an online presence for deliveries with a great disadvantage and loss. However, the restaurants with it continue to increase profit and grow better in the market.

● INDIA'S FDA GROWTH

One doesn't need to describe the hold Swiggy has on the discussed platform. Emerging from a small office in Bangalore just seven years ago, despite the low talk about online food delivery platforms it grew into the nation's first preference. Working in the most popular metropolitan cities of the country such as Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, it sees a huge estimate of profit that can be translated with the number of app downloads going up to 8,00,000+.

Another famous mention is Zomato which was founded in the year 2010, it grew from Delhi to various cities all over the country creating a remarkable brand image.

Both these systems work to combine a multitude of restaurants and provide the citizens with a service that satisfies both the consumers and the restaurants.

They have won the hearts of many citizens of the country and it’s hard to phones where these apps don’t ping on.

● FDA’S AROUND THE GLOBE

When it comes to a global perspective, Grubhub has a huge chunk of the world's loyalty and receives a great estimate of revenue due to the quality of service it executes. Emerging from Chicago in the year 2004 by two creative founders, it has now grown to have 140,000+ partners all over the globe. Operating in about 2,700 cities in the US and UK it receives about 457,300 orders in just one day. Along with the popularity of great customer service, it also heavily contributes to the economy of the countries. It accounts for $284.1 million raised just through funds while its annual revenue is estimated to be about $1.3 billion.

The success comes from their business model that works with about 60 technologies to provide the best of its ability. Its cohesive UI & UX design and unique marketing strategy help it to grow more acquisitions, fundings, and partnerships.

DoorDash, formerly known as "paloaltodelivery.com', is another incredible account of the revolution FDAs that's taking place. Within just one year it was able to expand to 70 restaurants and received a funding of $2.4 million and only continued to grow at a rate of 20% every upcoming week. This alone shows the extent to which they have successfully used AI to provide the market. In the year 2020, DoorDash accounted for 45% of the entirety of food delivery orders in the US market and additionally has a double-digit profit that outran all the other online food delivery apps. They adapted many thrilling ways to expand their platform such as adding restaurants to their platform without any agreement ahead - while they were risky, it certainly was what led them to achieve the first position in the pool of FDA's.

Their market strategy that led to achieving a $72 billion valuation in the New York stock exchange stems from their aggressive and passionate aims to grow while simultaneously minimizing cost by installing dark kitchens (kitchens located in low-cost areas that provide only deliveries.)

These, alongside many other FDAs such as UberEats, Deliveroo, Postmates, and JustEat, are bringing about great profits to the industry, consumers, and the global community as a whole. Changing the way people look at technology, how they eat, and preparing them for the intense revolution that the innovation of technology is about to provide.

Playing the role of the intermediary between them, there falls a huge responsibility, trust and along with it a representation of the brands they deliver, hence becoming the new face that customers use to communicate with the restaurants. While it is an individual entity, it connects the community and has the power to shape the way restaurants are perceived and how consumers dine.