THE FODOO ECONOMICS OF MEAL DELIVERY – The Economist/Agosto 2019
Even those who recoil at eating supper out of a soggy box, fear being mowed down by curry-bearing cyclists or think the death of home cooking is a cultural abomination should admire Jitse Groen. The 41-year-old Dutchman, who cooked up the online food-delivery business by founding Takeaway.com in his university bedroom in 2000, is not your usual tech billionaire. He keeps a low profile, views venture capital with distaste, earns a relatively unflashy six-figure salary and sometimes hops on the firm’s delivery bikes to help out.
His main extravagance is a sharp Italian suit. So why did he, on July 29th, propose shelling out £8.2bn ($10.1bn) on shares for Just Eat, a large but struggling meals-on-wheels firm based in Britain? The answer says a lot about the voodoo economics of the food-delivery industry. It is a hotly competitive business, attracting the world’s biggest moneybags such as Amazon, Alibaba and SoftBank. Balancing the needs of diners, cooks and couriers is fiendishly complicated. Most startups lose platefuls of money.
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