Key Food Delivery Industry Trends In 2022
Within the hospitality industry, the food delivery sector has grown but also adapted during the pandemic. We have identified food delivery trends in 2022. Software development continues to play an important role in facilitating the necessary changes and adaptations.
Go Wombat can help you identify the appropriate business changes and the necessary software.
The Transformation of the Food Delivery Sector
Social distancing needs and reduced face-to-face contact have led to new rules of services provision. To survive, restaurants and cafes followed food delivery trends and changed to or grew delivery services.
According to the PR Newswire report, online food delivery is a vast market segment with its revenue in 2021 expected to be 126.91 billion and expected to reach $192.16 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 11%.
Website and mobile apps have become important tools in most catering establishments as well. Even if they provided online delivery before the onset of the pandemic, they now had to re-organise and adapt their service to cater for the increased methods of ordering.
Advanced delivery channels
These include wearable or mobile apps such as a smartwatch. Virtual assistants such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant comprise another channel for successful online food delivery. The Grubhub food delivery service has integrated with Alexa and other virtual assistant providers to take orders. Domino’s Pizza uses chatbots to speed up the ordering process via text or emoji.
There is even a car app for integrated intelligent car systems that allows users to order dinner right on their way home. Pizza Hut has partnered with the Accenture consulting company to create an in-car pizza ordering system.
Build your food delivery service with us — contact Go Wombat!
Key Trends In Food Delivery
Contracted-Out Delivery
Many food businesses contract out to third parties the distribution and delivery of orders, thus obviating the need to own and operate delivery staff and vehicles. These are professional delivery platforms, involving local drivers, even bicycle couriers, who commit to delivering orders within a prescribed timeframe.
In-house Delivery Fleets
Many restaurants established in-house fleets for food delivery instead of using outside contractors. This allowed them to monitor the service more effectively. To manage these operations, they need delivery dispatch software and other delivery management systems to automate the assignment of drivers to each order and monitor their performance.
Go Wombat is always glad to build appropriate software for your business.
Delivery Data Analysis
Food delivery service trends include the use of Big Data for monitoring delivery operations. For example, in 2019 McDonald’s acquired a Big Data startup, Dynamic Yield, to improve its performance with better management and analysis.
Companies gather data to understand their delivery operations better and extract useful information for future use. Big Data algorithms help identify weak points which allow restaurants to modify their business approach in a timely fashion.
Grocery and Meals Ready To Cook
Traditional grocery shops have stayed in business since they sell vital products. However, any but the smallest have needed an online presence to increase sales and stay competitive. That is why the development of an online grocery delivery website is an important step.
Groceries can help people avoid face-to-face contacts and visits to stores by providing everything for online purchase and delivery. However, customers demand convenience and flexibility, and many grocers have seen a need to scale up their operations.
Customised meal kits have also grown in popularity. Customers select food by ingredients and can choose from a variety of cuisines and dishes every day without leaving their homes. Users subscribe to a delivery service. This is still a growing market and there is potential for new start-ups.
The development of an on-demand delivery website can be entrusted to a software development company like Go Wombat. We can help you keep up with international food delivery trends – contact us!
Virtual Kitchens
Virtual kitchens have also grown in popularity. These are online services without dining spaces where customers order food delivery only. Business owners just need a kitchen without any front-of-house infrastructure. It is a cost-efficient model for a new business and the opportunities of a virtual kitchen are really endless. It does however need a top-quality website that is owner and customer friendly.
Contactless Delivery
During the pandemic, customers have wanted and needed to avoid unnecessary face-to-face contact. A trend in the food delivery industry, which has become routine in many countries, is contactless delivery in which couriers deliver boxes to the customer’s doorstep.
Robotic Delivery
Among online food delivery trends is hi-tech robotic delivery.
Drone
Delivery by drone is an effective way to deliver food on time; ground-based factors such as traffic are removed. Many food distribution companies such as Zomato have their own drone fleet. It was one of the first companies to deliver orders by drone in 10 minutes within a 5 km distance. and provide food as quickly as possible. In 2022, this trend is set to continue.
Robot
Artificial Intelligence (AI) allows food businesses to use robots for delivery. For example, DoorDash partnered with Starship Technologies in 2019 to build and use semi-autonomous robots for food delivery. Robots are relatively cheap to run but do need regular maintenance and are potentially vulnerable to damage or malicious attack.
Self-driving car
Statista claims that this market will expand to 27 billion U.S. dollars in 2021 and exceed 37 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. DoorDash has partnered with General Motors to test self-driving cars for meal deliveries and plans to start delivery testing in San Francisco by the end of 2021.
Keeping Up With The Food Delivery Industry Trends
To grasp the opportunities from these trends, you can partner with a high-quality tech company, which can help you integrate technology solutions for your business.
Go Wombat has expertise in complex software development within hospitality, AdTech, healthcare, and other industries.
Partner with Go Wombat, and let us build your Food Delivery project! Contact us.
