Grocery Store Impact
Now the idea of having restaurant prepared food delivered to your door does not really impact your local grocer. Let’s say you are someone who eats out three times a week and you choose to order from a food delivery service (like Favor) those nights. That doesn’t really impact the amount of groceries you buy for those other meals you will need to consume.
What really is frightening grocers is the meal kit delivery services like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Green Chef. These services will mail you recipes and ingredients right to you door, taking you out of the grocery store. This is cutting out the middle man and bringing you quality ingredients without all the fuss. This is impacting grocery stores in a big way. With a loss of traditional business in place for a meal kit delivery, grocery stores have to come up with more creative ways to get you back in the store. Although the impact isn’t huge in this current moment, the potential for the meal kit delivery services to grow and become more affordable could seriously impact our grocers. Especially with Amazon recently buying Whole Foods we can expect a cheaper meal kit service from them any day now.
Restaurant Impact
Depending on the type of restaurant, impact of food delivery services could be major or minimal. Let’s look at a chain restaurant like Applebee’s for example. This restaurant can expect major impact if food delivery services like Postmates, Favor, and UberEats continue to grow. Each of these specific meal delivery services have exclusive deals with the restaurants in which they offer on their app. Many will chose to order from a unique restaurant found on these apps over calling the closest chain restaurant. With the exception of college favorites like Buffalo Wild Wings, chain restaurants can expect to take a hit as specialty food items become more easily accessible.