Opportunity
Problem
Online food delivery platforms are expanding, becoming more prevalent, accepted, and used by time-pressured individuals.
The food service delivery market in the United Kingdom (UK) was valued at approximately 10.5 billion British pounds in 2021. According to Statista Reports, this figure is predicted to increase in 2022 to 13.3 billion British pounds. In 2024, the market is forecast to grow to reach as much as 14.6 billion British pounds. The hectic lifestyle of UK residents has contributed to the growth of food delivery websites and apps.
Food delivery companies let users order their favourite food items from nearby restaurants listed on their web portals and smartphone apps. The food delivery marketplaces do not have in-house kitchens. Instead, they partner with a wide variety of restaurants and act as a facilitator between the restaurants and consumers for business transactions to occur.
Food delivery apps attract more customers for restaurants because people have the option to compare and choose the dishes of their choice. Moreover, food delivery services often run ongoing marketing campaigns offering discounts and deals on every order. Customers are often attracted to these offers leading to more sales. A well-structured online ordering system streamlines the entire ordering process, from selecting the cuisine to delivering it to the customer’s home to make food ordering a pleasing experience.
This new way of doing business has presented new challenges to restaurant owners to ensure that their business systems cope with the multi-faceted requirement for ordering, recording, and delivering customer orders. The reason is that orders are sourced from multiple channels online, or in-store, and therefore deliveries need to be routed accordingly. At the same time, information needs to be managed in real-time, including the updating of online menus, pricing, and promotions plus accurately recording all transactions. All of this can be very challenging if the restaurant business systems are not integrated to accommodate the seamless recording of transactions no matter the source.
At Grub24 their food ordering system allows customers to enter their delivery postcode to see the participating nearby restaurants. The menu for every restaurant is given in detail with attractive images of the dishes. Customers feel the ease and confidence of online ordering when the product information is clear and complete.
The food ordering system enables customers to customise their orders. For example, they can choose extra ingredients, select toppings, or leave ingredients out. Once an order is placed, the system provides the contact details of the delivery executive to the customer so that the customer can establish communication in case of any issues during the delivery.
The payments are made easy by incorporating different payment options, such as iOS Wallet, Stripe, Credit Cards, Internet Banking, etc. Moreover, customers are given the chance to share their ordering and eating experience via reviews and ratings. Thus, the company gets the opportunity to learn about any weaknesses in its current delivery system to provide the best experience to the users.
For restaurant owners who operate the Grub24 ePos system their internal systems and processes will be further streamlined and optimised through the use of the following devices; The entire ePos system works seamlessly with the Grub24 App and website for restaurant owners to take advantage of and manage their entire front-of-house business operations from a single point.
The multi-channel device will facilitate orders being received from diverse platforms like Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eats and Grub24 and have these routed through the ePos ordering system without the need to re-key any customer information. At the same time, the ePos system can manage multiple menu options and update the individual online delivery platform with relevant information, including promotional details.
The Kiosk system can facilitate self-service ordering in-store without the order being manually completed, thus increasing the order throughput and efficiency, not to mention the accuracy of the order being correctly recorded. In addition, the ePos system holds key customer information that enables highly targeted marketing and promotions to be scheduled and targeted to specific customer segments for greater impact.
The pandemic was a boom period for food delivery as Britons relied on apps such as Deliveroo to get dishes brought to their door. But that convenience comes at a price, as consumers are charged higher prices – in some cases almost a third more on takeaway menus as well as service and delivery fees.
The market value of food service delivery in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2021, with forecasts for 2022 and 2025 (in billion British. pounds)
Fig 1: The market value of food service delivery in the United Kingdom: Statista 2022
Solution
The hectic lifestyle that the majority of the residents of the UK now have is one of the main factors that has impacted the demand for food delivery apps. The food delivery apps in the UK and worldwide are the bridge for connecting restaurants to their audience.
With a powerful food ordering app, the customer can browse through a diverse catalogue of food on offer from different restaurants and select their preferred food items, and making upfront payments is easy. While a food delivery app has amazing features, it however can be difficult to acquire new customers.
The food delivery application development process must incorporate a marketing strategy that includes marketing tactics, social media, and a target audience. Thus, the app itself can become a powerful extension and platform for marketing but requires an equally powerful system to manage the relevant data to execute the marketing strategy. Apart from that, businesses can also establish relationships with food bloggers and influencers to strengthen their brand’s exposure.
Food delivery apps can often be a better solution as they make it significantly easier to order via the app on a smartphone than to phone an operator – not to mention going to a restaurant to get takeaway food.
Grub24 not only saves the customer money on food orders when compared to ordering from their rivals. They do this by not charging any commission or very low commission and working with some of the best restaurant partners locally. In addition, Grub24 through its ePos system and related devices enables the restaurant front-of-house to be integrated which increases efficiency and reduces operating costs that translate to better profits.
Market
A recent survey done by AppsRhino found that younger people are more likely to use food delivery Apps. A significant 63 percent of people 18 to 29 years old have used a multi-restaurant delivery website or app service in the past 90 days.
For the age group 30 to 44, 51 percent use food delivery apps and websites. This is followed by 29 percent for those aged 45 to 60, and just 14 percent for those 60 years and over.
The average annual salary for full-time workers in London in 2022 was 41,866 British pounds a year, compared with 29,521 pounds for workers in North East England, which was the lowest in the United Kingdom in 2022.
When segmenting by income, the survey found that the lower a consumer’s income, the more likely they are to use restaurant delivery services.
London is often subdivided into Inner London and Outer London. Together, they make up the area of Greater London. The population of each (from the 2021 census which was conducted by the Office of National Statistics) is as follows:
- Inner London Population: 3,404,300
- Outer London Population: 5,395,500
- Greater London Population: 8,799,800
As Grub24 is initially centered in and around the Greater London area, the population density provides a significant target market for their food app.
Therefore by researching the market thoroughly, we can minimize the risk to our business; identify new opportunities, while helping us to communicate better with our clients.
We identify our market’s key demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioristic characteristics, as follows:-.
- Demographic: Age, Gender, Income, Education, Ethnicity, Family size
- Geographic: Region, city, neighbourhood
- Psychographic: Social class, lifestyle, personality, values, life stage
- Behavioristic: Buying pattern, consumption, loyalty, and attitude.
Grub24 customers are what drives us. We aim to work hand in hand with food businesses helping them delight their customers and drive their brands from strength to strength. At the same time through technology drive business systems integration, increase efficiency, reduce costs, and increase profitability.
Fig 2: London Population by year: Census.
Roadmap
Our roadmap will ensure we take a good look at all aspects of the business requirements. This will result in a strategic tool that will serve as a guide for better and more effective management. It will help us to identify opportunities and challenges and will also focus our attention on important questions to be tackled.
Our roadmap for the business can be summarized as follows:
- Vision, strategy, and goals.
- Setting revenue and profitability targets and following strict financial controls.
- Provide accurate forecasting and projections that will remain conservative to protect the investment of all parties.
- Focus on promising what we deliver and acting conservatively to ensure all invested parties’ assets are protected.
Our Roadmap to success will be:
- Provide exceptional product services that improve business operations for our clients and leave a lasting impression.
- Provide an easy-to-use online food delivery service at competitive rates to encourage end-use customers to become repeat customers for the benefit of all.
- Convert our 1700 on-premise ePos clients to the newly launched cloud-based ePos system with enhanced front-of-house and marketing features. At the same time acquiring new clients for the cloud-based ePos system.
- Managing our internal finances and cash flow to enable upward capital growth and business expansion.
- The strict control of all costs, at all times, without exception.
Revenue Milestones:
For 1, 3, and 5 years
Grub24: 4 Million users and 11 Million orders. Within 3 years – 6000 epos clients.
Geographic Milestones:
Expansion to new and emerging markets in Europe and the Middle East, after consolidating the expansion throughout the UK.
Biggest Milestone:
To become a unicorn in our chosen industry and thereafter highly respected in the business world.
Products or Services Milestones:
Merchant hub to be integrated with food suppliers and automate the ordering and marketing process in addition to the current offering of an online food delivery system and provision of integrated business operation systems for the restaurant and takeaway industry.
Company Overview
Grub24 was established in 2019 and has processed over 700k orders totaling £15.5m with 235k users and 1650 restaurants and takeaways using the service.
With the experience of managing a food delivery service start-up which was eventually acquired by a bigger rival, Grub24 was founded in a 100sq feet office space in Birmingham. The first order was placed on Sep 10, 2018, at 6:13:38 pm. In 2019, Grub24 moved to its new office in London. Grub24 had a 600% year-on-year order increase with expansion to other cities throughout the UK.
With Grub24, we created an amazing framework that makes it easier than ever to order food and groceries at a very good price. Our commitment is to quality and we are constantly pushing the boundaries to deliver an amazing set of solutions.
Grub24 is a Private Limited Company.
