Food on Demand: A Feast for the Imagination, Tangible News for the Industry
As we head
into the holiday season, it's easy to imagine all sorts of wild delivery scenarios, such as the Halloween cartoon below. Halloween night was one of
the coldest in memory for Minneapolis, where FOD is based, so more than a handful of parents might have been thankful to have the treats come to the
child, rather than braving the cold to visit their neighbors for a few lousy mini candy bars. Plus, you can always post a picture of your dressed-up
child on Facebook, so the expense of a costume isn't wasted. We can also picture an extended family on
Thanksgiving day sitting around a table texting (instead of conversing) as they wait for the late turkey feast to be delivered. And, of course, the
2017 Santa uses drones to deliver gifts and bags of coal. The futuristic bend of FOD is fodder for the
imagination, but the real news in this fast-paced world is the consolidation that's taking place, as well as the creativity. Be sure to read us all
the way to the last brief, where you'll discover which delivery company has its own kitchen for restaurants to use. But don't rush, think of it as the
anti-Thanksgiving meal: filling, easy to digest and no belt-loosening required.
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-Nancy Weingartner Monroe Editor of Food On
Demand Nancyw@foodondemandnews.com
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| McDonald's Puts More Muscle into Delivery Expansion with UberEats By Laura Michaels The global fast-food
giant plans to expand its partnership with UberEats to offer delivery from 5,000 of its U.S. restaurants by the end of 2017, said Chris Kempczinski,
president of McDonald's USA, on the company's third quarter earnings callOctober 24. McDonald's already offers
delivery in more than 20 percent of its 37,000 locations around the world. Read More
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| Bite Squad
Completes Massive, 17-Company Acquisition By Thomas Kaiser Bite Squad, a seven-year-old, third-party restaurant delivery service
based in Minneapolis, announced a massive 17-company acquisition that expands its footprint to more than 30 U.S. metro areas and vaults the company
into one of the category's largest brands.
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Olo Partners With Amazon To Streamline Delivery By Nick Upton The legion of white Amazon vans roving
through your city will be carrying more restaurant deliveries after penning a deal with delivery logistics provider Olo. In the new deal,
Amazon has partnered with Olo, integrating with Rails, Olo's API that makes it easy for restaurants to list their menus on third-party marketplaces
like Amazon Restaurant. Read More |
| | Tales Spun 'Round the Web
Order Food Without Leaving Facebook
Facebook announced it has partnered with third-party
delivery services such as EatStreet, Delivery.com, DoorDash and ChowNow so users can order food without ever leaving the social media site. Facebook
is also working directly with restaurants including Jack in the Box, Five Guys, Papa John's, Panera and others; so users can browse restaurants in the
"Order Food" section of the "Explore" menu. "People already go to Facebook to figure out what to eat by reading about nearby restaurants, and
seeing what their friends say about them. So, we're making it even easier," wrote Facebook VP Alex Himel in a blog post. The company has been testing
the feature since last year and launched it in the U.S. on October 13. Read the full story
here Delivery, E-commerce and Their Impacts on Packaging
Changes in food delivery options are impacting how food packaging must perform, notes a new report from the Foodservice Packaging Institute.
In its 2017 Trends Report, the FPI gathers and analyzes survey information from companies throughout the foodservice packing supply chain, offering
insights from industry players and a look at high-level trends. This year's report spotlights "how focused the industry is on the demands of increased
e-commerce and delivery services," said Lynn Dyer, FPI's president, in a statement. "As delivery options rapidly expand and evolve, so must the
packaging." That includes everything from a shift away from polystyrene to a greater interest in tamper-evident packaging and food safety. Dyer will
talk more about trends in foodservice packaging and their impact on the burgeoning delivery market during Food On Demand's 2018
conference, March 19-20 in Dallas, Texas. Read the full story here Last Call for Amazon Wine Marketplace
Apparently Amazon can't do it all-or at least not on every
platform. As the online retailer pushes alcohol delivery through its Amazon Fresh and Prime Now channels, it will shut down its Amazon Wine
marketplace at the end of the year. Given that Amazon now owns Whole Foods, which also sells wine and other alcohol at many of its stores, it's not
surprising the Seattle-based company is refocusing its strategy. Amazon Fresh is available in nearly two-dozen major U.S. metro areas, plus London,
Berlin and Tokyo, and Amazon in August expanded the cities included in alcohol delivery service through Prime Now. The company's email to
sellers says, in part, "as Amazon continues to offer customers additional retail options for buying wine, we will no longer offer a marketplace for
wine at this time." Read the full story here
Grocery Delivery Service Peapod Moves Downtown Peapod, the online grocery store company founded in
1989 in Skokie, Illinois, announced that it's moving its corporate headquarters from the far northern Chicago suburb down into the city's West Loop
neighborhood. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Carrie Bienkowski, Peapod's chief marketing officer, said the move is intended to bring
the company a larger cohort of skilled workers, while also allowing a more open-plan layout designed to create a more collaborative office for
employees. According to its website, Peapod currently services the Chicagoland, Milwaukee, southeast Wisconsin, Indianapolis, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, southern New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and greater Washington D.C. markets.
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