Uber Eats, authorities to bump up quality...
Uber Eats, Sri Lanka’s dominant on-demand food delivery app, is working with the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) and other relevant authorities to bump up the quality standards in the local food industry, according to Uber Eats Sri Lanka Lead Bhavna Dadlani.
Speaking with Mirror Business at the Uber Eats one-year anniversary event held recently at the Shangri-la hotel, Colombo, Dadlani said that for restaurants to come onboard the platform, it is mandatory for them to satisfy some basic checks that the company carries out to ensure stringent quality-control in respect of food preparation and basic hygiene.
“I think that with us partnering with the CMC, we’ll both be able to achieve higher standards in food quality and safety much faster.
We are collaboratively working with the authorities to figure out whether there is a potential control for the delivery partners on the road,” she said.
Apart from the CMC, Dadlani did not disclose the other relevant authorities.
In Colombo, Uber Eats is collaborating with the CMC to elevate the quality standards in all aspects of dealings, from food preparation to the delivery process, but the company is currently not involved with any such authority in the city of Kandy. However, Dadlani said that it is in the works and that the company is working with the relevant authorities to further excel the quality standards to cities it expands to.
The company highly values the feedback that the consumers leave about their delivery partners, food quality and preparation in respect of certain dishes and ratings.
“We find all this information to be extremely useful, as this helps us show the restaurants how to utilise consumer feedback to figure out what the consumers are saying, what they feel about each dish to a specific dish level and that has really helped raise quality standards for some of the restaurants on our platform,” she said.
Uber Eats has expanded to two cities so far, Colombo and Kandy and the company shows interest for further expansion although the next city is yet to be announced.
“We are seeing a lot of potential in many different areas in Sri Lanka. One of the biggest challenges that we had is creating the market, given that food delivery is very new to the country, so we often see that the moves that we make now are enabling opportunities in the short- to mid-term. So, in terms of the number of cities, I feel like that will keep changing as we go along as well,” Dadlani said.
The company has been creating opportunities for restaurants, providing strong visibility, in terms of the reach that the app has at the moment in Sri Lanka and making restaurants improve their quality and services with the immensely beneficial consumer feedback.
Elaborating on the company’s delivery partners, Dadlani noted that the company is continuously looking to enhance their earning opportunity and how the platform could open up doors for them.
She also revealed that Uber Eats’ Diviyata Diriya programme aims to aggressively onboard more female delivery partners, saying, “We’ve seen the value additions and how much they enjoy working on the delivery platform.”
The company’s Diviyata Diriya programme clarifies its offerings of flexible and convenient working hours, which would benefit someone like a single mother.
“We have continuous focus-group discussions to understand the challenges women usually face in the workplace and then figure out how we provide solutions while they are riding as our partners,” she added.
According to Dadlani, the company has enabled female delivery partners in aspects of sanitation and safety.
“One of their challenges is finding sanitation solutions. So, partnering with certain restaurants to be able to unlock that solution for them has also really helped,” she further added.
Meanwhile, speaking on the safety aspect of female delivery partners, who would be active on the app during the late hours of the day, Dadlani assured that a direct hotline, specifically for female delivery partners, is in place in case of an emergency.
She also said that the company offers martial-arts classes for our female delivery partners for self-defence purposes.
In its one year of operations in Sri Lanka, Uber Eats has completed three million orders in Colombo and Kandy, with an average delivery time of 30 minutes. The company boasts its presence globally in over 500 cities, having partnered with over 220,000 restaurants in 36 countries.