News

Is Amazon already back in the food delivery game?

June 14, 2019 by Cherryh Cansler — Publisher, FastCasual.com

Summarize withChatGPTGrokPerplexityClaude

Although Amazon announced earlier this week that it was closing its 4-year-old Amazon Restaurants delivery service, it's not quite out of the food delivery game. The e-tailer is backing the third-party delivery company, Deliveroo, which is planning a major expansion in the U.K. after securing $575 million in funding from Amazon and other investors, according to Bloomberg.

Since its founding in 2012, Deliveroo has raised $1.5 billion in venture capital and is now hoping to increase its reach in the U.K. from 33% to half of the U.K.'s population by the end of the year, Chief Executive Officer Will Shu, told Bloomberg.

The third-party delivery business is hugely competitive. In fact, there are more than 1,000 third-party delivery providers in the U.S. alone, Chowly CEO Sterling Douglass recently said during a QSRWeb's podcast, while venture capitalists sunk $3.5 billion into food and restaurant delivery startups last year.

"Whether they're local, regional market places that may have even been started off by a college student ... or another branded online ordering company or mobile app company that pops up, he said. "As the technology is getting easier and easier to build you're seeing a lot of options for restaurants."

About Cherryh Cansler

---

Cherryh Cansler is Publisher of FastCasual.com and Vice President of Connect Food. She has been covering the restaurant industry since 2012. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, The Kansas City Star and American Fitness magazine, among many others.

Connect with Cherryh: