Sir, Your intriguing report on Deliveroo’s introduction of a network of 30 kitchens across the country (‘Deliveroo opens up its own kitchen network,’ 8 April, p8), to enable its partners such as Gourmet Burger kitchen and Busaba Eathai to increase capacity and offer food in new locations, opens up a number of questions.
When is a Gourmet Burger Kitchen avocado bacon burger a Gourmet Burger Kitchen avocado bacon burger and when is it a Deliveroo avocado bacon burger? Deliveroo’s USP is to deliver the authentic restaurant product to your door. The RooBox kitchens have space for five or six sets of chefs from different restaurants who will cook exclusively for Deliveroo. So is that an authentic experience, or franchising by another name?
Your readers may remember Deliverance, an earlier generation dotcom food delivery service that opened six kitchens across London from Farringdon to Wimbledon, to ensure 35-45 minute deliveries of a variety of food from Indian to American and sushi. It closed a year ago, saying: “The huge and rapid changes in the food delivery market [read Deliveroo!] have impacted our business to such a degree that we sadly have to close.”
Will toiling RooBox chefs have trouble replicating the dishes? Is it more Deliverance than Deliveroo? If a courier delivers branded products from its own supply chain, and which may never have been near that brand’s actual physical stores or restaurants, is it fully delivering that brand and its reputation?
David Jinks, head of consumer research, ParcelHero
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