Home delivery and food service to continue upward post-COVID trends

For example, Saudi Arabia has a young demographic, rising purchasing power, quality internet connectivity and a trend towards modern and changing lifestyles. Saudi ranks third in terms of smartphone penetration worldwide, ahead of the US, UK, France and Germany.

The country has also greatly improved the security around online mobile payments, bolstering confidence in consumers. Another key market indicator is the growth in consumer spending in the Kingdom, currently described as robust.

Elsewhere the impact on big players has been notable. Just Eat Takeaway saw orders rise across the globe in the last quarter as recent investments began to take off. Half year orders in 2021 are up 61 per cent, whilst newly acquired subsidiary Grubhub saw 51 per cent growth. Delivery order growth in the UK for the same period grew to 733 per cent.

Meanwhile, rival Deliveroo has announced 400 new technical roles to be established at the company in a major sign of confidence in-home delivery’s future due to post-COVID trends. The food delivery platform said the new roles would include positions for software engineers, data scientists, and designers.

The firm said the aim was to work on a range of innovations that would help improve the app experience for restaurants, riders, and customers on the platform.

The company added that the expanded team will also work on a range of projects to support further growth on the service, including improving its on-demand grocery delivery service and its specially designed, delivery-only Editions kitchens.

The acceleration towards home delivery options extends to innovations in grocery activities due to post-COVID trends. In the US, grocery delivery company Instacart announced entering the warehouse business, seeking to expand its reach in an increasingly competitive food delivery market.

The grocery company said it would start building fulfilment centres for supermarkets over the next year in or near grocery stores, with a capacity for 10,000 to 50,000 items. In such fulfilment centres, the company will use robots to pull items from warehouses and have Instacart’s workers pack and deliver orders.

It is a departure from the company’s usual process which involves assigning shoppers to collect products from grocery stores and drop them off at people’s homes.

Food delivery was recorded as growing to £3.7bn last year in the UK, reaching £11.4bn, double its 2015 market value. The Lumina Intelligence UK Foodservice Delivery Market Report 2021 found that almost 31% of consumers ordered delivery once a week. The report concluded from survey activity that most consumers expect their delivery preferences to continue despite the potential for alternatives as hospitality reopens and restrictions lift.

The UK Foodservice Delivery market is projected to achieve consistent growth over the next three years as behaviours from 2020 endure and operators continue to commit to delivery.  The market is projected to climb towards a total value of £12.6 billion in 2024.

Read for information on Farrelly & Mitchell’s Market Intelligence & Insights service.