Driving growth with food delivery
The clock strikes 12pm, signifying the lunch hour for most. You make your way out of the office thinking where to hunt for lunch. You join the masses in selecting, queueing, ordering and finally getting a spot to eat – but with little time left to yourself.
This scenario – one in many – gave way to the wave of a new trend within the food and beverage industry: online food ordering and delivery. Some may even say that “ordering in is the new eating out.”
Larger fast food chains such as KFC, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut have offered said services from the get- go, but specialised companies have now formed to further expand this sector.
Within Malaysia, Foodpanda was the first delivery company that started aggressively growing to the point where it is considered as top- of- mind food delivery brand here.
A close fol lower in 2012 i s Penang- based star tup DeliverEat which has become the master and top household brand in its own hometown. Af ter years in Penang, DeliverEat has finally ventured out of Penang in late 2017 and hoping to replicate its success in Kuala Lumpur amidst the volatile competition.
When Uber Eats is launched in Kuala Lumpur – following the great success of its main parent Uber – it heated up competition since its inception in September 2017. It is now bought over by Grab during the acquisition in March 2018.
Also worthy of a mention is Honestbee, a Singapore-based startup which started out as a grocery delivery service and has presence in Malaysia.
Another smaller subsector is food delivery services who start earlier in the value chain: at food preparation. This is how Dahmakan set itself apart as food preparation, packaging and delivery are all handled internally by the company.
Dahmakan functions on a strict “milkman business model”. This means that customers can only pre- book their meals the day before. With scheduled delivery slots, customers are ensured to receive their meals, on- time and ready-to- eat.
Another player, Mamman, is the halal- certified version of this methodology, controlling the entire process from preparing Asian meals to delivery.
What’s not to like about having food delivery services here?
For one, we would not have to be stuck in the traffic during rush hours just to grab a bite at our favourite restaurant. And for those who have overwhelming piles of work to deal with at the office, they would not have to starve when they can just order or pre- order their meals online to be delivered to their workplace.
That said, we are not likely to just consume fast food everyday and it is not surprising that consumers here prefer to have more choices when it comes to ordering takeout meals. This is where food delivery operators come in.
Only in the past two years have we seen Kuching gradually catching on to the likes of top food delivery service providers such as foodpanda in Malaysia. While foodpanda is still not available here, it did not take long for budding entrepreneurs to realise the untapped potential of and demand for a similar service in Kuching.
BizHive Weekly talked to two food delivery service providers based in Kuching and gathered their thoughts on this thriving industry.