Naspers tucks into food space

PLATFORM HAS GROWTH POTENTIAL These are in essence technology businesses which require considerable, ongoing investment.

“From the market share information we have, Mr D Food and Uber Eats are by far the largest players in the South African market,” says Mr D Food’s Devin Sinclair.

“However, we have the broadest geographic coverage of any online food delivery business in South Africa – delivering to over 1 900 suburbs around SA ...”

With more than 2 000 restaurants on its platform, Mr D has more than doubled in the past year in the number of orders processed monthly and restaurants on the platform, Sinclair says.

The customer base has more than doubled in the past nine months to more than 500 000 registered users.

This experiment within the Uber app has evolved into a global app. “South Africans have truly embraced online food delivery; they are all about finding easy and reliable ways to discover the food they love at the push of a button,” says Uber’s Samantha Allenberg.

Since its September 2016 launch, Uber Eats has partnered with more than 1 200 restaurants across Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Joburg, Durban and Pretoria. According to App Annie, more than 550 000 people have downloaded the app.

Online ordering also enables new economic opportunities for restaurateurs. For instance, Cape Town’s The Poké Bar started at home and was able to move into formal premises following its Uber Eats success.

Another advocate is RocoMamas. “We helped push their numbers to double-digit growth, and that was during the off-peak season,” Nic Robertson of Uber Eats says.

These are in essence technology businesses requiring considerable, ongoing investment. While most online food delivery firms aren’t yet profitable, they all believe the necessary scale can be attained in SA.