Uber expands food delivery service

Uber is making a broader push into the on-demand food delivery market, taking on the likes of GrubHub, Seamless, Just Eat and Postmates, in its latest expansion beyond its original ride-hailing app.

After piloting the service in Los Angeles since August last year and then in Barcelona since February, UberEATS is now launching in New York City and Chicago.

The service adds a new option to Uber's existing app and uses the same fleet of drivers that ferry passengers to deliver food, promising to do it in 10 minutes or less

"Ordering UberEATS is just as easy as requesting a ride," Uber said in a blogpost announcing the service on Tuesday.

The company said that a dedicated team of drivers would deliver food, drawn from its existing pool of contractors.

Uber was prompted to expand by the popularity of the service in Los Angeles, which has gradually expanded from a limited but daily-changing menu of lunchtime sandwiches to dinner dishes from restaurants in upscale neighbourhoods such as Beverly Hills.

Travis Kalanick, Uber's chief executive, has often talked about expanding beyond the car-hailing service to create a wider logistics network that is "as reliable as running water, everywhere for everyone".

That has included experiments round the world ranging from one-off stunts such as helicopter rides and ice-cream deliveries to UberESSENTIALS, which offers residents of Washington DC household items including snacks and cleaning supplies, and UberRUSH, a Manhattan cycle courier service launched a year ago.

The company has posted several job advertisements in recent months to expand these initiatives, which are grouped under the umbrella of "UberEVERYTHING". According to the LinkedIn profile of Jason Droege, who heads up the unit, UberEVERYTHING's ambition is about "delivering the world in about five minutes".

By launching in New York and Chicago, UberEATS is arriving in the home markets of Seamless and Grubhub respectively, two pioneers of the online takeaway delivery market in the US that merged in 2013.

Since then, the number of start-ups offering food delivery with the tap of an app has mushroomed. Square, the ecommerce company founded by Jack Dorsey, last August acquired two-year-old Caviar, allowing restaurants to outsource ordering and delivery.

In February, Postmates, another San Francisco-based start-up, raised $35m in venture funding from Spark Capital and SoftTech VC. Last week, the company launched a tie-up to deliver burritos from Chipotle, the popular Mexican fast-food chain, across 24 US cities where it has a total of nearly 10,000 couriers.

Gett, an Uber rival previously known as GetTaxi, is also expanding into the delivery market. From July, Gett customers round the UK and in other markets from New York to Moscow will be able to order pizza, sushi, groceries and even plumbers, the company said on Tuesday. Gett also said that it was on track to generate $500m in revenues this year.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation