‘Delivery Netflix’: How Food Apps Are Changing Restaurant Business

Emre Uzundag and Yonca Cubuk say they’re living a “little dream” thanks to a food delivery app.

Turks emigrated to New York in 2020 and were trapped inside a small apartment in Brooklyn because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Missing their homeland, the two began preparing Turkish cuisine to deal with the stress of quarantine. “It was a mental necessity during the pandemic,” says Cubuk.

So they started cooking for friends around New York and got a really good response.

“They said that we should work with it,” she says.

Although neither of them had worked as a chef before, last year they decided to jump right into the business and started using an app called Woodspoon.

While the biggest food delivery apps in the US market like Just Eat, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and DoorDash (the biggest in the country) list big restaurant chains, WoodSpoon has a very different strategy. .

The service was launched in early 2020 with the aim of bridging the gap between people who cook at home and customers who want something different from what is offered by the biggest companies in the industry.

Available in New York and New Jersey, the app has 120 chefs from the region among the options and is responsible for delivering orders.

The business of the couple Uzundag and Cubuk, called BanBan Anatolian Home Cooking, operates four days a week – the other three are invested in testing new recipes. Yonka Cubuk said the high demand for orders forced the two to work even on their wedding anniversary.

She says the service saved them from having to rent a commercial area. “WoodSpoon gives a platform and a voice to tell our story,” he says.

“And we’re more than kebabs and pilaf (an Asian dish made with rice). The dishes that come out the most are lentil soup and orange spinach stew. Both are vegetarian; the latter is vegan.”

Influence of the pandemic

Lee Reshef, co-founder of Woodspoon, says launching the service at the time the pandemic broke out helped the business. “We were lucky to help many restaurant workers who needed a new source of income,” she says.

Before being accepted by Woodspoon, chefs must show that they have food safety training and have their kitchen inspected.

The chef also needs to make a record of the activity with local authorities, in addition to assessments of hygiene conditions.

With the pandemic forcing restaurants to close for an extended period, the last two years have seen a big boom for delivery apps. The biggest company in the industry in the UK, Just Eat, saw revenue rise by 42% between 2019 and 2020, to US$990 million (R$5.5 billion, at the current price). At DoorDash, the result was tripled, to almost US$ 3 billion (R$ 16.6 billion).

With this new market in relevance, new demands from customers arise. For example, ordering dishes from different restaurants delivered together in the same order.

Some apps are starting to offer this service.

A US app, Go By Citizens, owned by the C3 group, makes it possible to order dishes from different types of restaurants, such as Umami Burger, Krispy Rice, Cicci di Carne and Sam’s Crispy Chicken.

But to make it possible for food to be prepared and ready for delivery at the same time, C3 says it operates 800 ghost kitchens. There are different preparation stations under one roof, just for delivery.

“Our app allows customers to select, choose and group their favorite menu items from a variety of C3 brands in a single order,” said the company’s chief executive, Sam Nazarian. He describes his business as “the Netflix of restaurant ordering”.

In addition to C3’s brands, the company is inviting other restaurants and businesses to its platform and ghost kitchen space.

Meanwhile, another business based on this model, Kitchen United, also makes it possible to order dishes from different brands at the same time through its app.

“Everything is delivered or available for pickup at the same time and on the same account,” says Kitchen United Executive Director Michael Montagno. “So if one person wants sushi and the other person prefers pizza, you can do it.”

The service is available in ten locations and is expected to reach eight more soon.

In the UK, the company Deliveroo has ghost kitchens where some restaurants operate rent-free. But, according to a company spokeswoman, there is still no way to order food from different brands at once.

Whether it’s the ability to order home-cooked food or choose items from different restaurants in a single order, will the new models put more pressure on brick-and-mortar restaurants or other struggling delivery businesses?

British food critic Andy Hayler said some aren’t too thrilled with the idea of ​​having food made by three different restaurants in one order.

“If I saw a menu that offered two or three very different things, that would sound to me like a generic food vendor, making industrial line food,” he says.

For Hayler, some ingredients, like curry, work well for delivery. But French and Japanese cuisines have problems because presentation counts and dishes are spoiled when squeezed into plastic containers.

“Half the experience (with French and Japanese food) is visual,” he says.