The UK has a huge appetite for takeaway food, and gourmet home delivery is growing bigger every year. While takeaways have always been popular, us Brits now expect restaurant quality meals delivered to our homes so that we don’t even need to leave the sofa.
A large part of this boom is due to brands like Just Eat, Deliveroo, Hungry House and UberEats, which allow us to choose to have meals from our choice of restaurant delivered straight to our door. The growth of smartphone apps that allow us to order quickly and easily are also a big factor.
In reports released by global information company, the NPD Group, over the last couple of years, they’ve reported that the growth of home delivered takeaways has increased significantly faster than that of dining out, particularly among those apps that specialise in delivering restaurant-quality meals.
Even pubs have partnered with these brands, so we can have pub meals delivered too. Although they form just a small part of the delivery market, the increase in pub deliveries is increasing exponentially every year.
According to NPD, in the last ten years the takeaway delivery market has grown by seventy three percent and is likely to grow by another seventeen percent over the next two years, which means it will then be worth around five billion pounds.
Consumers are enjoying having a much larger choice of restaurants to choose from when it comes to getting quality takeaways, mostly thanks to the aggregators like Just Eat and Deliveroo. They can now order meals from a variety of different types of restaurant, from Chinese, to pizza to burgers, and everything in between. And it’s all available via phone apps and online, making it easier than ever to place an order.
Some interesting facts about home delivered takeaways
Delivery orders have increased by over twenty percent over the last couple of years – twenty times faster than the overall food service industry.
Although forty six percent of takeaway deliveries are still made by phone, online orders have almost caught up with thirty eight percent. App orders are currently just sixteen percent, but have tripled over the last two years, so will no doubt catch up soon.
Chinese is the most popular home delivery within the takeaway industry, with 179 million servings delivered in 2017 according to the NPD Group. This is closely followed by pizza with 171 million servings, then burgers with 82 million and curry with 70 million. Pizza seems to be losing popularity though, while the popularity of home delivered burgers is remains high.
Consumers tend to spend about half the amount when ordering takeaways as they do when they order in a restaurant, usually forgoing starters and desserts.
Looking at these statistics, it would seem that it’s well worth those restaurants who offer a takeaway service signing up with one of the aggregators for home delivery. Although a commission is paid to the brand who does the delivering, it is a much cheaper form of marketing than standard advertising, so will allow smaller independent brands to reach a much bigger audience than they could on their own.