Food Delivery Apps/Services

Food Delivery Apps/Services

In the 20th century, the United States food industry went through many changes that saw its rise and spike in sales. The cars’ advertisement was such that the dream of every American family was to own one. The federal government made much investment in the building of roads and highways. The kind of promotion done on the big screens and television depicted the industry as the only futuristic trend at the time. Thus, the food industry itself transformed to accommodate the foreseen change in the country. Restaurants and food industries developed drive-through that has become the hallmark of the American food industry that still in uses up to this day not only in American but all over the world. Innovation in the industry led to an increase in the number of sales that the industry earned. However, in the 21st century, the world has changed, and even though cars are still familiar and widely used. The advent of the internet is changing the food industry and delivery services through the development of mobile apps. With the promise of connecting the whole world into one global village, these kinds of connectivity present niches and business opportunities that businesses have to take advantage of. This paper will focus on discussing argumentatively the trends and innovations that are fast-tracking the food industry in the 21st century.

With the changing demographics in the population presents the food industry with the challenge of customizing their food delivery and service to fit the tastes and preferences of the predominant demography in the way they consume and present their food. Unlike the previous generation that preferred to meet in restaurants, the millennial prefer social media. Of course, the enabling change that the world has seen is fast internet connectivity (Hamrick et al., p.8). Just like in the 20th century, when cars had come into the scene of the world country, the 21st century saw the internet play a major role in the transformation. In the 20th century, the government built highways to accommodate the rise in traffic due to people buying cars; the government in the 21st century has built communication infrastructure to accommodate the rise in demand for the internet. Due to the use of these infrastructures and the high population of millennial, the food industry has transformed a great deal from physical infrastructure to online platforms. Millennial are more likely to eat in fast-food restaurants and online food ordering; in fact, for every five millennials, 3 use organisational change or visit restaurants for takeout. Their most massive budget spending is on takeout and online ordering services. For food industries to survive, they need to tap into this resource by fitting their needs and preferences. This generation requires effortless ordering, instant delivery, and one-step checkout. Therefore, with the perceived tastes and preferences, the food delivery services have come up with ordering channels and delivery options that help quash this need and niche. However, the development of technology is alienating the older generation.

Among the delivery channels that the food industry is taking advantage of is social media for its connectivity among people with a large percentage of the population of not only the United States but also all over the world share their experiences. Additionally, there 63% of Americans prefer an excellent customer experience when ordering food and are more likely to abandon order if the customer experience is inadequate and does not fulfil expectations—55% prefer a much simplified and more comfortable ordering system that which offers a variety of options and channels that do not limit them (Hamrick et al., p.8). For example, Dominos has taken advantage of the most popular social media platform, where one can place their order via a tweet. The process requires one to create a profile with Domino’s online delivery service. Creating a profile helps one to establish a default order known as an Easy order, which is then linked to the twitter account. Therefore, anytime, one tweet an emoji to Dominos, the order is placed and delivered to the customer. The process is easy and simplifies in that it only requires one to tweet an emoji to place an order.

Additionally, taking advantage of the face via an order by use of a virtual assistant that helps customers not only order their pizza but also customize them to fit their tastes and preference. A virtual assistant is a kind of text-based program that helps customers order by choosing from a multiple of predetermined questions that the computer responds to. Domino’s virtual assistant called Dom serves this purpose by replying to emoji and single word requests by customers. It also offers a platform through which clients get a response to their inquiries. This kind of customer experience takes advantage of a large number of users of Facebook, making it easy and accessible to many people. Grub hub is also making use of Alexa to help customers reorder one of the last three orders they had made previously.

Smartwatches have become the most convenient digital gadget the many people in the USA are using. The interest in smartwatch ownership has continued to increase, with more than a million watches sold in 2016 (Seneviratne, p. 2580). With this kind of uptake of watch technology, food delivery platforms are making apps that are compatible with Android and apple smart devices enabling a customer to order food from their wrist. With the simplistic form of these apps, it only takes a few clicks to order food. Domino’s was the first to break into this niche by providing an android watches app that simplified the ordering process. Another company that has made great strides in this frontier is OrderUp, which integrated a system through which one cannot only place orders but also know delivery statues and the order’s estimated time of arrival from their devices.

Technology is not only transforming the ordering option that customers have that are simple and convenient but also it has led to changes in delivery options that help customers and companies cut the time of delivery and take advantage of cutting edge technologies. The modern edge of technology is the use of robots in food delivery. With Artificial Intelligence, they make use of self-driving cars. JustEat in London, England has collaborated with Starship Technologies to develop a droid that had changed food delivery. Although the robot moves a speed of 4 mph in a 10-mile radius, considering the amount of traffic in the city, this is among the fastest food delivery methods. The robot makes use of GPS signals and cameras to navigate through the city and avoid collisions with pedestrians and vehicles. With a unique code that the customers have, they enter it to access the package when the robot arrives at the destination. However, this kind of technology needs development for it to be applicable in all conditions and places around the world. Additionally, the existing legislation has not been amended to deal with the highly dynamic technological landscape.

Another piece of technology taking the food industry to the next level are drones that promise to cut delivery time by more than half. The most significant advantage of this kind of technology is the fact that they are not limited by traffic that plagues most of the cities not only in the United States but also all over the world (Doole et al., p.7). Although the uptake in the application this piece of technology is still growing, it is rather slow. The first application of drone food delivery was in San Francisco by Taco copter. Burrito Bomber and Dom copter later followed in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The first delivery by Domino was in 2016 when they delivered pizza s to a New Zealander couple in under six minutes.

Every day the food industry sees a rise in niches and market gaps that business is supposed to fill. For a long time, they have concentrated on satisfying the needs of vegans. However, a new trend in the world is environmental conservation, and thus food restaurant owners have to take advantage of this. Thus, startups are taking advantage of this niche by tapping into the food waste. One-third of food worldwide in at home and restaurants and hotels goes to waste (Farr-Wharton et al., p.2). With the use of apps, the problem is being tackled and saving the planet by offering to cafés and grocery stores to get rid of surpluses then selling it to customers at low prices. For example, FoodForAll gives a discount of up to 50% for unsold meals from local restaurants, café, and delis to people. One can get a rather expensive meal at a lower price of even $2 (Facussé, p.21). However, one has to order and pick their food within a limited time. However, developed the United States is, their more than 50 million people all over the country that go hungry while food goes to waste. Therefore, Food Rescue US provides food to homeless Americans in a strive to end hunger in the USA. The volunteer-driven platform has participants who provide fresh grocery, available foods from restaurants to over fifty million Americans.

The pet industry is a lucrative industry, with over sixty per cent of people, own pets, and above forty per cent of pet owners buy food for their pets online. Among millennial, it is rather popular to have pet food delivered to their doorsteps because it is convenient and tailored to the tastes and preferences of the consumer. Many of the apps have come up with different ways of food delivery apps and services. For example, Monster Pet Supplies has a food ordering and delivery app in the United Kingdom to conveniently deliver food to pet owners without hassle in shopping. This kind of app provides pet owners with free delivery and scheduling orders to allow for repeated delivery.

The most recent development in the currency development in the world of economics is the development of the cryptocurrency. Many countries like China have implemented legislation on cryptocurrency (Galvez et al., p.228). The United Kingdom is on the verge o implementing the same and including the currency in their central bank reserves. One of the advantages of this method of payment is the fact that it cuts on fraudulent as the currency acts as a public ledger in which every transaction can be tracked in that all transactions are recorded. Blockchain technology has been implemented under PizzaForCoin, which accepts up to 50 cryptocurrencies. Takeaway.com, Feastly, Levy Restaurants, Papa John’s Pizza, and Lobster Gram now accept the blockchain technology. Therefore, customers are not limited to a particular type of method of payment (Gupta, pp. 892). Thus, even those currencies that are relatively unknown can be accepted.

However, the most significant advancement that has helped food delivery apps to gain traction at this rather fast pace is the introduction of virtual kitchens. The concept of the virtual kitchen means that restaurants need not open a new restaurant but open only a kitchen space to prepare meals only. With this method of operation, the restaurant reduces its operating costs of opening a new branch (Gupta, pp. 892). Under Uber Eats, restaurants have the option of using say a salad café to offer sandwiches; the café under Uber Eats is a virtual kitchen for sandwiches but remains a salad café at the physical location. Therefore, with virtual kitchens, food delivery platforms save costs while focusing more on customizing their products to fulfil customer’s tastes and preferences through data analysis, thus offering products that are popular in a given area (Pantelidis, p.9-10). Therefore, the virtual kitchen does reduce not only the cost for the mobile application company but also increase the amount of profit made by the restaurant or café

In conclusion, the 21st has a tremendous change in the food delivery process that utilizes technology and the internet. The change seems not to slow down as technology advances. With the advent of 5G, trends in the development of new delivery channels and options, niches will be increasing. The above-started trends have helped streamline the industry and making not only accessibility but also environmental conservation easier and applicable. Therefore, restaurants and café need to embrace the changes witnessed in the country.

Work cited

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