Are Food Delivery Companies Responsible for Accidents?
To get straight to the point, yes, food delivery drivers, like any driver on th...
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Published on Jul 13, 2022 at 4:56 pm in Food Delivery.
Along with food delivery trends, accidents stemming from food delivery might also increase. If you suffer injuries, seek help from a food delivery accident lawyer in San Diego today.
Forty percent of restaurant food does not get eaten in the restaurant today. It gets delivered via an app like DoorDash, GrubHub, or UberEats. Quarantining during Covid changed a lot of things about our society and how we live. Food delivery is definitely one of them! The food delivery industry is projected to reach $220 billion next year.
This figure doesn’t even account for grocery delivery and meal prep delivery apps like InstaCart, SunBasket, and HomeChef. Within the next 2 years, online grocery delivery will reach $120 billion (that’s $100 billion growth in 2 years). With self-driving cars soon to be everywhere, these industries will surge.
Most restaurants today will allow you to order through a wide variety of delivery apps. If you have a favorite, you can usually just use the app of your choice. However, 15-20 years ago, very few restaurants offered delivery–mostly just pizza and Chinese food. At some points, restaurants that were buying delivery motorcycles, reimbursing employees for gas, and paying for the occasional car accident, ditched all of that and outsourced to the delivery apps.
However, restaurants like Panera still use in-house delivery drivers. Chick-Fil-A is also toying with the idea. Restaurants may revert to in-house delivery so their branded vehicles are seen on roadways, for full control of the consumer’s dining experience, to manage the back-end more seamlessly, and to have greater access to their customers’ data. In-house delivery is of the greatest benefit to large chains like Panera and Chick-Fil-A. The same is also expected to happen with grocery delivery.
Imagine the data McDonald’s currently has on its customers. No loyalty cards like at the grocery store, no punch cards like at the local boba tea shop, no coupon usage to track. Now imagine the data McDonald’s would have if it handled its own food deliveries. It would give them the full names and addresses of their client base. From there, they could better track the demographics of their consumers, analyze repeat customers’ spending habits, and more. This is why in April of 2019, McDonald’s spent $300 million buying a big data start-up. Their strategy is to make delivery decisions based on data and build their own delivery platform from there.
At the moment, Instacart dominates this market, but soon serious competitors will arise. When that happens, the grocery store industry will begin to offer more than one delivery experience for customers. This is good for everyone as the competition will make the delivery apps better. The way Amazon fulfillment centers have cropped up in every neighborhood is eventually what will happen to grocery stores–they will just be big warehouses prepping deliveries. As for meal prep subscription services, these are gaining popularity with millennials. Data shows that millennials prefer convenience over taste and prioritize eating in over eating out.
As food delivery becomes more and more common, there will inevitably be more overworked, underpaid drivers on the roads. If you’ve been injured by one of those drivers, please reach out to RideApp Law Group today. We are a San Diego law firm that can help you get maximum compensation after your accident.