Best food delivery services in 2021: JustEat vs UberEats vs Deliveroo

 

We tried them all and we have put together a comparison between the best food delivery services in the UK.

takeaway competitors uk

As a result of Covid-19  JustEat saw their order numbers doubling, Deliveroo kept growing their business and went through IPO and UberEats kept adding more restaurants and choices for consumers to decide for.

  • JustEat is the most mature in this space. It was founded in 2001 in Denmark. In 2005 launched in Docklands, London. For almost a year Just Eat UK didn’t expand much and it took some time to expand to multiple cities and provide consumers with a good restaurant choice. By 2016 JustEat had acquired all of its UK Competitors, including the second biggest food delivery service at that time, Hungryhouse. JustEat’s business model was flawless, they would bring customers to restaurants and in return it would charge a commission fee, a fixed sign-up fee and other service fees from restaurants including the option to rank on top of the search list within the Just Eat website and app. By then, JustEat would deal only with restaurants that had their own fleet of drivers so JustEat didn’t have to deal with that part of the experience which was challenging and very expensive to manage. During their existence, JustEat acquired more than 15 companies and ended up being merged (in what was a masterpiece of strategy from Takeaway.com) forming the JustEat Takeaway.com company.

 

  • In 2013 what has become the biggest threat to JustEat in the UK was born – Deliveroo. Their premise was different and their restaurant focus was totally different from JustEat. Deliveroo focused more on premium restaurants that normally would only have dine in options and didn’t do delivery. Deliveroo’s business model was similar to JustEat apart from the fact that they would manage their own fleet of drivers and offer that as a service to restaurants in exchange for a higher commission. This enabled Deliveroo to offer premium food, at a higher cost to more types of consumers.  In less than a year Deliveroo became very popular and expanded quickly.

 

  • Three years later, in 2016, we saw UberEats launching in the UK. The brand was already well known due to its parent company Uber. Expansion happened rapidly and quickly UberEats was ready to fight for a piece of the market share.

During the pandemic, with restaurants closed and no dine in available, takeaway was the best alternative we could get. The demand for food delivery skyrocketed so we decided to try and test the biggest three food delivery services in the UK.

 

The best food delivery services you can use today

justeat vs ubereats vs deliveroo

The three main platforms offer a very similar approach. When you access their application it will  show you restaurants nearby that can deliver to your door. You can see restaurant information such as address, food hygiene rating, reviews, delivery times, cuisine type and the menu. Once you select your restaurant and the food you want, you are prompt for the payment. Once paid the restaurant will start preparing your food and will deliver to your address.

 

  • JustEat Takeaway.com

justeat pros & cons

Just-Eat is the platform that covers more areas within the UK and Ireland. They have a large amount of restaurants in big and small cities. There are restaurants with no minimum order however these restaurants will charge a higher delivery fee. Very few restaurants offer free delivery with no minimum order.  Free delivery can be found in a lot of restaurants if the minimum order is above £15.

The delivery time is something to look at when ordering via JustEat. If you are not in a rush or are very good at planning your order in advance then it should be ok. Otherwise you might have to wait 45 minutes on average. There were occasions where we had to wait more than 1 hour. The worst part is that JustEat can’t do much to improve this as they don’t manage the restaurant nor the restaurant’s drivers. If you give them a call to complain with the delay, they will call the restaurant on your behalf and they will get an update of the status of your order, but there’s nothing more they can do. This also has an impact on their real-time tracking system which is not as accurate as the other two platforms and for the majority of the restaurants is not even available.

Takeaway.com was one of the first businesses to accept bitcoin payments back in 2012 so it won’t be a surprise if we start seeing JustEat accepting Bitcoin payments as well.

If you are a British Airways member and love to collect avios, then JustEat offers Avios for each £1 you spend. It is a nice way to add some avios to your BA membership.

In terms of site visits Justeat.co.uk has around 23million visits per month on their website.

 

 

justeat traffic

(Image above shows website traffic to www.just-eat.co.uk from similarweb.com)

 

Download JustEat Takeaway.com apps here  Android , iOS

 

  • Deliveroo

deliveroo pros & cons

There are a reasonable number of restaurants in Deliveroo where the delivery fee is free, however there is always a minimum amount, normally £10 that we need to spend in order to get it for free. What they do when you order anything less than £10 is add a “small order fee” to reach the £10.

Deliveroo has been operating their own fleet of drivers but recently for some restaurants Deliveroo uses the drivers from the restaurant instead. So, if you order from a restaurant where the owner or a restaurant worker is delivering the food to you instead of a Deliveroo driver, you won’t be able to track it.

If you are a recurring customer, Deliveroo offers a £11.49/month subscription, where you won’t pay any delivery fees for orders above £10.

In Deliveroo you will be able to find restaurants with higher food quality compared to JustEat. The average price for a Deliveroo order is usually higher.

One good differentiator is that Deliveroo does grocery delivery. It has a good range of options. It partnered with well known brands like Sunsbury’s, Co-op, Waitrose, Aldi, Morrisons, McColl’s and recently with WholeFoods (which was expected to happen at any time since WholeFoods is owned by Amazon which also has a big stake in Deliveroo).  When ordering groceries from Deliveroo you won’t find all the items that you can find in the supermarket but you will be able to find all the essentials and more which is pretty convenient for consumers.

In terms of site visits Deliveroo.co.uk has around 9.50million visits per month on their website.

 

 

deliveroo traffic

(Image above shows website traffic to www.deliveroo.co.uk from similarweb.com)

 

Download Deliveroo apps here  Android , iOS

  • Ubereats

UberEats pros & cons

The delivery fees can vary from restaurant to restaurant. Out of the three platforms UberEats is the one with less restaurants with free delivery but they do seem to offer a lot of promo codes to consumers. Ubereats has recently introduced the “no rush” option. If you decide to opt in, then £0.99 will be deducted from your total bill. However your order will take on average an extra 10 minutes to be delivered.

With UberEats there is no minimum order and if you are craving for something small or just a drink then Ubereats might be the best choice. They won’t charge you extra for a small order.

In terms of tracking the order it works the same way as Deliveroo.

Ubereats doesn’t have a .co.uk website. The www.ubereats.com websites will track your location and identify your country, showing you only restaurants in your area. We believe the majority of traffic for Ubereats is coming from mobile.

Ubereats also does grocery delivery however it has a limited selection compared with Deliveroo.

In terms of site visits Ubereats.com has around 51.50million visits per month to their website. However this statistics includes every country they have a presence.

 

ubereats traffic

(Image above shows website traffic to www.ubereats.com from similarweb.com)

Download Ubereats apps here  Android , iOS

 

 

Do you know what consumers are looking at when ordering takeaway online?

what are the mains things we look when ordering food online

 

 

There are other platforms available in the UK. They either focus on a specific cuisine or a specific location.

 

Kukd.com (previously curriesonline) was founded in 2015 by Euro Foods Group, which is headed by celebrated entrepreneur, Shelim Hussain MBE. Kukd focuses mainly in Indian takeaway and recently expanded to pizza delivery. The majority of restaurants are available on the main three platforms but something you will be able to find a better discount or rewards via Kukd.com. Tastyfind.com also includes kukd.com on their comparison algorithm so you can make sure you get the best discount from that restaurant. Kukd offers reward points called Kukd points. When you spend £1 points you will get 1 point and 1 KUKD Point has a monetary value of £0.01. So you will need to spend £100 to get £1 in points.

 

Foodhub is another alternative to the three main services. Their premise is that a consumer can save money compared to any of the big players because they don’t charge a service charge. Foodhub has around 15.000 restaurants across the UK.

 

Conclusion: All the three main services are very competitive and each offer different pros and cons. The majority of the big restaurants and the chains are available on the three platforms. Menu prices across all platforms should be the same. In the past we have found occasions where this was not the case but later on it was rectified. The discounts applied to a restaurant may vary from platform to platform. All the three platforms are always running discounts and promotions, it can vary from a free delivery, a percentage discount of your basket or deduct some £ from your total basket so make sure you check current promotions.

It is convenient to check all the platforms to see if any restaurant discount is available or you can use a service like Tastyfind which does the takeaway comparison for you.

Deliveroo and Ubereats offer quicker deliveries and JustEat has more restaurants available giving more choice to consumers.

Mcdonalds has exclusivity to JustEat and Ubereats. Nandos is exclusive to Deliveroo. Other bigger chains are available on all.

In terms of grocery delivery Deliveroo is the biggest winner with a good selection and quick deliveries.

 

 

 

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