UberEATS

2022: Start delivering food by car without drivers

On May 16, 2022, Uber announced the launch of a food delivery service on fully unmanned vehicles. It is accessed in Santa Monica and West Hollywood in California (USA).

The pilot project on the use of drones is carried out in collaboration with Motional, a joint venture of Hyundai and Aptiv, engaged in the development of autonomous cars.

Uber began to deliver food by car without drivers

Vehicles in the new service will be actively controlled by human operators, Uber said, adding that it will be some time before this technology is used on a large scale.

Delivery will be carried out on IONIQ 5 cars, which are capable of operating offline. Participating restaurants bring packed orders to the car and place them in a closing compartment. As soon as the car arrives at the destination, the customer receives a notification and takes the order from the car.

Uber Eats and Motional have been working on various customer interaction points for several months, trying to ensure the uninterrupted deployment of the system, the company said.

{{quote 'At Uber, we are always looking for ways to use new technologies to help consumers get anywhere and get anything, "said Noah Zykh, global CEO of Uber's autonomous mobility and delivery division. We are excited to start a pilot project with Motional in California and look forward to their promising autonomous technology starting to change for the better ways to move people and goods around the world. }} Motional and Uber announced their partnership in December 2021. This is the first pilot project on the use of drones on the roads in the Uber Eats network, which makes it an important milestone for technology as a whole. Uber Eats controls about 24% of the US food delivery market, making its adoption of any new technology very important.^[1]

2021: Uber began delivering marijuana in Canada through Uber Eats

Uber will allow users in Ontario, Canada, to place cannabis orders on its Uber Eats app, marking the giant's invasion of a fast-growing business, a company spokesman said in November 22, 2021. Customers can place orders in the Uber Eats app, and then pick them up at the nearest Tokyo Smoke store. More details here.

2019

Almost 30% of food delivery providers in the United States try it before giving it to the client

At the end of July 2019, an American food supplier to US Foods restaurants published the results of a study that showed that food delivery providers in the United States often try it before transferring it to customers. The latter, of course, are unhappy with this situation.

Almost 30% of the couriers who took part in the survey admitted that they ate a small piece of food from the order. According to more than half of the respondents, they really wanted to do this because of the tasty smell, but abstained.

US Foods interviewed about 500 delivery providers from the largest networks in the United States: Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash and Postmates.

21% of food delivery customers suspect that the courier could eat their food

In addition, 1,500 users of food delivery services participated in the study. About one in five of them said they suspected couriers of trying food from orders.

85% of respondents said that restaurants supplying ready-made food should use special packaging, which will indicate the complete preservation of dishes.

On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 point means "nothing terrible," and 10 points - "absolutely unacceptable," the survey participants on average rated the situation in which the courier ate their food at 8.5 points.

The study also showed the main reasons for dissatisfaction from couriers: in 60% of cases, the absence of tips was called, more than a third of employees noted that customers did not answer phone calls or did not leave important comments for the delivery of orders (for example, the doorphone code).^[2]

In Russia, by mid-2019, the food delivery market is gaining momentum. There are more and more new players, which pushes services to improve the quality of service. For example, Delivery Club began to organize medical examinations for couriers and monitor the length of shifts. Employees will be able to visit, including a therapist, cardiologist and ophthalmologist, as well as make a cardiogram and fluorography.

Grandmothers in sneakers now deliver Uber food

In early July 2019, Uber CEO Dara  Khosrowshahi spoke about attracting older people to deliver food in Japan. According to the entrepreneur, pensioners want to work as couriers, since this not only brings them money, but also helps to maintain their physical condition.

We practice this approach only in Japan. And we hope that we can distribute it around the world... " Uber Eats enjoys great success in Japan. This is a very effective tool to introduce consumers to the brand, "Khosrovashi said in a conversation with Bloomberg, which published an article entitled" In Japan, ramen noodles in Uber are delivered by grandmothers in sneakers.

Elderly people in Japan deliver food for Uber Eats

Unlike many other couriers who deliver orders on scooters and bicycles, older people in Uber Eats prefer to walk. They consider work, including as a workout.

According to Kyodo, Uber Eats employees intend to create a union amid dissatisfaction that they are not on the staff of the company, but work as volunteer employees.^[3]

By July 2019  , more than 10 thousand restaurants  in 10 cities were connected to Uber Eats in Japan. The staff of service couriers totals 100 people who have made more than 15 thousand deliveries.

Uber Eats covers about 15% of the country's population, which leaves great room for  growth, Khosrowshahi notes. For  comparison,  in the United States, Uber Eats is available to  70% of the population. In 2019, the company plans to increase its staff in Japan by 30%.

Delivery workers work in accordance with Uber's instructions, so they should be treated in the same way as regular staff, said lawyer Yoshihito Kawakami, representing their interests.

Delivery of food by drones

On June 12, 2019, Uber announced the launch of food delivery using drones. The service will first operate in San Diego, one of 10 cities selected by the Federal Aviation Administration to test commercial drones.

Uber, together with McDonald's earlier in 2019, began testing the possibility of delivering food using unmanned aerial vehicles in San Diego. In May, the local Juniper & Ivy restaurant joined the tests - it began to air a burger with two cutlets, which is not included in the main menu.

Uber launches food delivery service with drones

The new service works as follows: restaurant employees load ready-made dishes into a drone controlled by a new air transport control system. Uber is not going to direct unmanned couriers directly to people who ordered food: UAVs with food will fly to special points, from where Uber Eats couriers will pick them up and bring them to the customer.

In the future, the company plans to teach drones to get on the roof of Uber Eats cars a mile to the addressee and be fixed there until the order is transferred.

Uber says that the use of drones will accelerate and reduce the cost of delivery - in the case when it takes 21 minute to overcome a distance of 2.4 km on the ground, air delivery takes only 7 minutes. Perhaps the process will be carried out even faster, since Uber is going to introduce upgraded drones that develop speeds up to 113 km/h.

At the time of launch of delivery of food by air (will take place later in the summer of 2019), its cost will be standard - up to $8.5 per order.

According to the forecasts of the investment company Cowen, the volume of the global market for food delivery services will grow by 12% per year and reach $76 billion in 2022. Uber believes that deploying drone delivery services in several markets will take at least three years.^[4]

2017: Launch in Moscow

On February 15, 2017, Uber launched in Moscow UberEATS - an application for ordering food from city restaurants. The application began work inside the Third Transport Ring and will expand coverage throughout Moscow.

Order food through the UberEATS

Several hundred Moscow restaurants are connected to the UberEATS. Among them are Zotman, Khachapuri, Burger Brothers, Chocolate Girl, Receptor, Chaykhona No. 1, Upside Down Cake, Batoni, etc. Restaurants are located within the third transport ring, as well as in areas in the north and north-west of the capital. The geography of UberEATS delivery is expanding weekly, and the list of restaurants collaborating with the platform is constantly being replenished.

You can order dishes from 11:00 to 23:00 by choosing a restaurant from the list. After placing the order, the restaurant immediately begins to prepare the dish, which is then placed in a thermal bag and delivered by partner couriers UberEATS directly to the customer's door. Throughout the duration of the order, the application notifies the user of the main stages of its passage - reception, beginning of cooking, transfer to the courier. The user sees an approximate time of delivery of dishes from each offered restaurant, can track the main stages of the order and observe the movement of the courier.

The application UberEATS operates in more than 60 cities, in more than 20 countries, including London, Tokyo, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Dubai and many others. More than 30,000 restaurants around the world have become partners of UberEATS.