Stuart – the delivery partner of Tesco, Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Nespresso – has cut its couriers’ pay without informing them.
The last-mile logistics platform – which works with thousands of brands and retailers, providing customers with same-day and one-hour deliveries – has reduced driver pay by 5p per order, according to couriers and data from rider platform Rodeo.
Riders say they have received no communication or warning from the platform regarding the minimum fee drop, to £3.35 per order for cycle couriers and to £3.65 for those using scooters.
The last time Stuart cut courier pay was in 2023, when it enforced a far larger pay reduction from £4 to £3.40 per order within half a mile. However, the move – which Stuart said at the time was part of “a new structure to link your earnings to the distance travelled” – came with an email to drivers about the cut.
“It’s not just disappointing, it’s appalling and arguably unethical,” a Stuart electric bike rider in London told The Grocer. “It shows that Stuart now views its riders with nothing but disdain.”
A table showing the 2023 pay structure has been removed from the Stuart website.
The move comes amid steadily diminishing perks for Stuart couriers, like the removal of a bonus for pick-ups more than 1.5 miles away.
“Stuart used to be among the best at compensating its delivery partners,” the e-bike rider said. “We called ourselves the A-Team, because it was more difficult to get hired with Stuart, they paid well and even held parties for the riders, offering prizes and food. They have completely changed direction in the past two years, and this is very much no longer the case.
“Now they haven’t even done us the simple courtesy of telling us that they have further lowered our compensation. Not a peep. They just dropped the base pay without telling us.”
Couriers working for Stuart have seen average earnings per month on the platform declining steadily, according to data from Rodeo based on earnings of around 1,000 Stuart riders. Average earnings are down by 70% since the beginning of last year.
“Gig workers deserve pay transparency, particularly as they are not protected by minimum wages,” said Rodeo co-founder Alfie Pearce-Higgins. “This means, at the very least, being told when their pay is being cut.”
A spokeswoman for Stuart said the company “remains committed to providing competitive earnings opportunities to independent self-employed couriers who operate via the Stuart platform”.
“The earnings available consider delivery distance, client demand, time of day, and transport type. Couriers have full transparency on the earnings opportunity for each delivery and accept to carry out delivery services for their clients on the basis of the information provided on the delivery invitation. Couriers are able to access detailed information relating to their deliveries and fees via the Stuart app and their weekly statement of earnings,” she said.
Asked specifically whether it had reduced minimum pay per order, the spokeswoman said Stuart “won’t be making any further comment”. Regarding Rodeo’s earnings data, they added that “Stuart does not comment on data reported by Rodeo as it is considered incomplete and inaccurate”.
The company has been a key partner of supermarkets’ own rapid delivery offerings, providing store-to-door delivery of orders made directly on the supermarkets’ own apps and websites – as opposed to via aggregator apps like Deliveroo and Just Eat.
However, it is facing increased competition from Uber Direct – which operates in a similar way. Stuart was launch partner of Tesco’s one-hour service Whoosh, but since 2022 shares Whoosh deliveries with Uber Direct. Stuart had also handled a proportion of Just Eat deliveries but through 2023, the aggregator app wound down the partnership.
Late last year, Stuart’s UK chief John Gillan told The Grocer there was a “lot of headroom” in the local grocery market, with major partnerships expected to be unveiled in 2024. “There’s still obviously a couple of big grocers not mentioned that we’re in conversations with,” he said at the time, adding: “There’s some big players as well in the quick commerce and food space that we’re yet to partner with.”
Gillan has now departed as Stuart’s UK general manager, The Grocer can reveal, having “made the decision to leave to pursue new opportunities and continue furthering his career” a Stuart spokeswoman said. He has been replaced, it is understood, by Ricardo Amorim, Stuart’s VP of global revenue and a former general manager of Stuart in Spain and Portugal.
In December, Stuart’s owner Geopost announced Stuart had been acquired by Munich-based private equity holding company Mutares.
“Mutares is specialised in acquiring medium-sized companies in special situations which show significant operational improvement potential,” Geopost said at the time.
Cornelia Raportaru, CEO of Stuart – which says it is on the “path to profitability” – said at the time the two companies “share an ambition to pragmatically grow our business”.
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