UBER AND OTHER DISRUPTIVE STARTUPS THAT'S CHANGING THE FOOD INDUSTRY

Posted on Sunday, 06 Sep 2015

Last month Uber rolled out their new service UberEats which basically is a food delivery service where they let their users order food through the app. It is becoming increasingly clear that Uber are expanding from their core business to "urban logistics". The thousands of drivers have the potential to not only give you a ride, but also deliver any item within a short period of time.

Today UberEats is available in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington DC and Barcelona. It works just like if you would have orded a ride, it's the same cashless payment and seamless experience.

This is a clear sign that the digitisation have revolutionized the food industry.

Last year Fortune reported that venture capitalist invested $28 million in food-related startups in 2013. For further readings about this check out our minitrend report, My powerful insights on the future of the food industry which we published in the end of april.  According to TechCrunch food and grocery delivery have been one of the most popular venture capitalist sectors with a half a billion dollar invested in the first quarter of 2015. 

A major part of this disruptive shift in consumer behaviour is according toForbes driven by Millennials who want their food to be authentic.

Furthermore they care about how the food is produced and they want the meal time to be a shared experience with family and friends. Millennials also prioritize convenience and choice and that's why they like on-demand services that helps them to free up time from must-do chores like meal planning and grocery shopping. Food startups like Instacart, Munchery, HelloFresh and JustEat understands this and that explains their popularity particularly among Millennials. 

The growth of food delivery startups is a good thing for us consumers. More competition will push the startups to improve the quality of their services even further.

And when we as consumers go online we can compare prices and also make sure that we choose the most healthy and sustainable option. More on-demand services in general will make living in urban areas even more enticing and could potentially strengthen the sense of community within cities because these kind of services connects people. 

As a Futurist and Innovation Strategist at Thinque I believe that the businesses that will be the most successful in this space are those who manage to create a seamless experience where they place the customer at the center.