The Growth of On-Demand Food Delivery

When we're hungry and want food now, all we have to do is order whatever it is we'd like from one of the on-demand food delivery apps that are on our cell phone. No big deal. We order the food we want, the driver brings the food to us within a half hour to an hour, we eat and we are happy. 

When it comes to eating, life really is simple these days. To many of us, it seems like these food delivery apps have been around forever. This is especially true with teenagers who have grown up with these food delivery apps and couldn't imagine life without them.

 

 

The growth of on-demand food delivery companies

The food delivery apps are still a fairly new business, but the reality of it all is that Doordash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, Postmates and the rest of the food delivery apps have had a dramatic growth spurt during the past decade; or should I say the 2010s. If we want to give credit where credit is deserved, we have to thank technology and the Smartphone. Without the Smartphone, it's pretty certain that we wouldn't have seen the sudden emergence and success of the on-demand food delivery business.

As aforementioned, the four largest on-demand food delivery companies are Doordash, GrubHub, Uber Eats and Postmates. These companies have grown in popularity nationwide during this past decade. There are many that believe that for success to happen being at the right place at the right time is key. If that is the case, these four companies certainly have been at the right place at the right time.

With the growth of Smart Phone technology in the 2010s almost everybody had a cell phone. The Internet is used more now on cell phones than on laptop computers. Yes, this is no longer 2008 when many websites looked weird and funky on our cell phones.

Besides looking kind of cheap, during those times we also had limitations of functions we could use on websites we visited. Of course that is no longer the case. We can now do just about almost anything on our cell phone that we can do on a computer. Some of these things are even easier from our cell phone such as ordering food from Doordash or another on-demand food delivery service.

What company made the first online order delivery?

The first online order for food did not come from what we know as food delivery apps today, but the first online order did come from a company that almost all of us know. Pizza Hut is credited with delivering the first ever online order in 1994. The customer ordered a large pepperoni and mushroom pizza with extra cheese.

Back then it was not a big deal to order pizza, but it was standard practice to pick up your home telephone and call up the pizza place. This Pizza Hut order surely was the beginning of something special that nobody saw coming. It was the beginning of a revolution that would some 25 years later have people ordering from Doordash, GrubHub, etc.

How long have food delivery apps been around?

Since Pizza hut made the first online delivery, what company made the first on-demand food delivery? Doorash? GrubHub? Uber Eats? Postmates? Nope! These companies would not be founded for many years to come. Instead, the first on-demand food delivery app to make a delivery was World Wide Waiter in 1995. Unbelievably, as we are now in the the year 2020, this company still exists and is known as Waiter.com.

Although Waiter.com is not known as much as the major four, it is used regularly by loyal customers everyday. In my opinion, the only reason that the popularity of this company is not as big as the major four is due to it not being nationwide. Waiter.com provide service in only a few selected areas of the country. As of now, those areas are in California, Washington, Texas and North Carolina.

Another early on-demand food delivery company

Kozmo.com was a company that was founded in 1998. Besides food, they also delivered groceries, video games, DVDs, magazines and more. Basically they delivered small items and guaranteed their customers that their order would be delivered within an hour. Kozmo may have been the first company to offer delivery of items other than groceries or food. Although the company got off to a successful start and even had a partnership with Starbucks going, Kozmo went out of business in 2001.

Of the major four food delivery apps, GrubHub is the oldest and was founded in 2004. Postmates started in 2011. Uber Eats, even though they were already a well established people mover company, got into the food delivery business in 2014. And last but certainly not least, our very own Doordash began in 2013.