It used to be that if you wanted to get a meal delivered to your home, you were limited to pizza joints and neighbourhood Chinese or Thai restaurants. With more and more Vancouverites making the most of their workdays or evenings, having a great meal brought right to the doorstep is an appealing convenience.
With an already impressive roster of global cities, delivery service foodora has officially launched in Vancouver.
Founded in Berlin, Germany, foodora operates in 50 cities worldwide, including three in Canada: Toronto, Montreal, and now Vancouver. Offering a website and app for ordering, foodora’s core mission is to “bring good food to people,” says David Albert, Managing Director of foodora Canada.
The service’s premise is simple: Customers place orders on-demand or ahead, from foodora’s roster of participating restaurants, and a foodora courier brings the order–the on-demand delivery window is typically within 35 minutes from order time. Foodora has a competitively priced fee: It’s just $3.50 for orders of $30 or more (and $4.50 per order under $30).
Albert says what it comes down to for foodora is value. Customers “can get delivery from restaurants that don’t deliver [on their own] and eat at the cool places where they’d eat anyhow.”
But the other two beneficiaries are the other two key players, the restaurants and the couriers. In regards to the former, Albert says that it is not uncommon for partner restaurants to draw 10 to 30% of their revenue from delivery service orders.
“It’s a very meaningful part of their business,” Albert notes.
Screenshot/foodora.ca
Couriers for foodora are independent contractors on bikes or in cars who are able to earn an all-in wage averaging $18 to 19 an hour, on a flexible schedule of their choosing. Foodora’s delivery window is an appealing 10 am to 10 pm, though not all restaurants are able to participate the full twelve hours of the foodora day.
For Vancouver’s launch, Albert says foodora is concentrating on the downtown core for both the delivery area and the participating restaurants–essentially the downtown peninsula that includes Yaletown, the financial district, and Coal Harbour, and into Gastown. They have about 40 couriers and 50 restaurants, but the company already plans to expand the restaurant list and delivery zone as early as the new year.
Among the Vancouver restaurants working with foodora are Zero Zero Pizza, Melu Juice & Health Bar, Dunn’s Famous, Six Acres, The Irish Heather, Bao Down, Basil Pasta Bar, DD Mau, Los Amigos Taqueria, Viet Sub, The Tuck Shoppe, and Bauhaus.
While it’s clear that food delivery services are enjoying a biz boom in Canada and Vancouver, specifically, Albert points out that foodora stands out thanks to their commitment to “providing a first-class service level and experience, driven mostly by tech.”
“We own the entire experience,” adds Albert. “We do everything but make the food.”
When it comes to just what that experience is, Albert says the foodora Canada team “really tries to create a curated experience.”
“We try to bring [customers] the best of their city. We look at all the different cuisine types, and offer them really great options at different price points.”
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