Deliverd Offers Another Take On The On-Demand Food Delivery Idea

Deliverd, founded by Paul Rawlings and James Grant, is another U.K. startup entering the on-demand food delivery space. However, the burgeoning company, which sees its formal launch today, offers a slight twist that potentially combines the advantages of take-out delivery services like Deliveroo with so-called online restaurants such as EatFirst.

I believe that we have a unique formula which addresses some of the huge challenges that other foodtech business and customers face Paul Rawlings
That’s because, like Deliveroo and competitor Take Eat Easy, Deliverd is partnering with local restaurants who prepare the food, but, more akin to EatFirst, those meals are delivered to you chilled, meaning that you’re required to reheat or finish cooking the freshly prepared food yourself.

Specifically, Deliverd lets customers order restaurant-prepared food through its web platform or via text message, either in advance for the week or same day before each day’s cut off point. You can pick between two delivery slots — 12:00 to 13:00 for lunch or 15:00 to 16:00 for dinner — and food is delivered directly to your home, office or to a collection point in the city.

“I know it’s a busy space with the likes of Deliveroo, EatFirst, etc. but I believe that we have a unique formula which addresses some of the huge challenges that other foodtech business and customers face,” says Deliverd co-founder Paul Rawlings.

The first, he says, is price. The startup offers meals with a starting price of £4 and is purposely launching in the North of England and outside of London, “focusing on population density, and not affluence.”

Deliverd’s pre-launch test has already seen customers order 2-3 times a week, either for lunch at work or their evening meal at home.

The second is that negating the need for food to arrive hot enables all sorts of logistics efficiencies.

To begin with, Deliverd is able to utilise the spare kitchen capacity of the restaurants it’s partnering with: food orders are sent during off-peak times unlike that typically seen by take-out services.

And, like EatFirst, Deliverd isn’t required to do A to B deliveries but can aggregate orders and design its delivery routes accordingly.

“Because our food is chilled, we can escape the traditional A-B delivery model which gives us the opportunity to do some pretty cool stuff,” explains Rawlings.

This includes letting customers order from multiple kitchens located in different parts of a city, and using “probability to calculate cost”.

The latter means that even if a customer is located further away, Deliverd’s technology is able to determine that someone nearby will also order, thus enabling delivery to remain free as meals “pass between multiple servers before reaching their destination.”

“We often get compared to other premium delivery companies like Deliveroo but we believe that our major competitor is more the ready meal,” adds Rawlings. “We believe that, as we are positioned as a Monday to Thursday product where customers want to eat great food but can’t afford the high ticket spend of a takeout, our repeat ordering is high in comparison to others.”