Beautiful, nutrient-rich meals can be the last thing you want to craft when you arrive home after a long day at work, so can going out for supper! Home delivery offers that happy medium and total ease. So - onto Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat - you name it, they’ve got it. Premium restaurants offering your all time favourites with just one click. Simple, convenient, delicious and quick. What’s more to like?
What people aren’t aware of is the ominous side of these companies and the impossible situation they’ve put restaurants in. This blog aims to shed some much needed light onto the Third Party Aggregators - the services connecting the consumer to the restaurant - the change in restaurant culture post-pandemic and how culinary convenience is blindly leading us towards a nutrient deficient diet.
What is a Third Party Aggregator in Food Delivery?
A third party aggregator is a platform connecting customers, restaurants and delivery drivers. It’s a single application providing an online marketplace where the customer can freely browse and choose to order from their local restaurants, supermarkets, cafés without leaving the comfort of their own home. These include well known names such as Deliveroo, UberEats, JustEat. These have fast become platforms on which restaurants rely because of their far reaching customer audience. It’s become a necessity in order to remain competitive.
They often market themselves as supporters of local vendors, underpinning community restaurants by delivering a broad variety of high quality food conveniently direct to their customer’s door. They have transformed the restaurant industry and culture making it one of the first options consumers think of when deliberating their evening’s meal.
The Evolution of Home Delivery
Smartphones have been a key catalyst for our fast paced consumer behaviour. Apple Pay, Paypal and now Klana has made buying online quick, convenient and accessible. Our digital lifestyle is tailored to a fast paced society where instant gratification is the norm. Of course, the one click wonder of home delivery platforms fits ‘instant culture’ to a T.
The Global Pandemic in 2020 took the success of the Third Party Aggregator to another level. Home Delivery looked like the shrouded saviour for restaurants during the Pandemic. While huge volumes of establishments shut down, some kitchens stayed open and took to online platforms to keep their business afloat. But, this was the extent of it. Aggregators cannily raised their fees for lack of another option, completely absorbing their margins. This was fine as a short term fix but post pandemic, but businesses are still hugely reliant on home delivery services. It’s a growing market, expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 11% by 2025.
The Facts:
Third Party Aggregators have an incredible hold on the restaurant industry. Even ‘aspirational chains’ such as Dishoom and Pizza Express who retain a loyal customer base, are on these apps. They don’t need to be but they are. Aggregators are now acting as a form of advertising, giving even the most successful restaurants exposure and opportunity for customer retention. As for the rest, the small independent businesses, they have to be on there just to take part.
Deliveroo and JustEat ask for 25%-40% commission per order, bleeding restaurants dry of their own profits. Even Feedr (a company proud of their efforts for sustainability, health and wellness) take 25%-30%. Vendors struggle to stay open but to remain in the game, they take to these platforms.
Something has to give and almost always, it’s the produce. Over time, this erodes not only the taste and presentation of the dishes but also the nutritional value of the meals being served.
Fresh, whole ingredients like organic produce, grass-fed meats, and responsibly sourced seafood are often more expensive. When restaurants are pressured to reduce their ingredient costs to make up for lost profits to delivery platforms, they may turn to lower-cost options like conventionally grown produce, processed ingredients, or frozen foods. These substitutions can affect the nutritional value of the meals in several ways:
- Higher Sodium and Preservatives: To lower costs, restaurants might opt for pre-packaged or processed ingredients, which are often higher in sodium, artificial preservatives, and unhealthy fats. These additives may help extend shelf life and reduce expenses but are detrimental to the nutritional quality of the food.
- Fewer Fresh Vegetables and Lean Proteins: Restaurants may cut back on nutrient-dense ingredients, such as fresh vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, in favour of cheaper, calorie-dense options like refined carbs, sauces, or fried foods. This shift not only reduces the overall nutritional profile of the meals but also makes them less balanced.
- Smaller Portions, Fewer Nutrients: Another cost-saving strategy is reducing portion sizes. While this may seem like a superficial change, it also means consumers are getting fewer vital nutrients per meal. Smaller portions of vegetables or lean proteins reduce the intake of fibre, vitamins, and minerals essential for a healthy diet.
- Lower Quality Fats: Instead of using higher-quality oils like olive or avocado oil, which are rich in healthy fats and extracted using natural methods, restaurants may switch to cheaper oils like vegetable oil or palm oil, which are extracted using solvents that accumulate to impact our health, as well as containing higher levels of trans fats and omega-6 fatty acids—both of which can negatively impact heart health in high quantities.
Us time-poor consumers are unknowingly eating meals less nutritious than the food they would normally receive when dining in. This decline in quality is particularly troubling when many people are relying on delivery for multiple meals per week, often assuming they’re getting the same quality they’d experience in the restaurant. Gravity on food provenance is a huge part of restaurant culture and to have to compromise on this is a sad indication of the declining direction of the gastronomic world.
Conclusion:
From a consumer standpoint, repeated consumption of lower-quality, more processed food can contribute to various health issues, including lower immunity and autoimmune condition, mood disorders, weight gain, higher cholesterol, and increased blood pressure. Moreover, the convenience of food delivery often leads to more frequent ordering, which only compounds the problem when the meals themselves are less nutritious.
Larger restaurant chains, with greater buying power and profit margins, are better equipped to absorb these fees and still maintain ingredient quality. Independent and small-scale operators, however, bear the harshest burden, making it difficult for them to compete on both price and quality while upholding nutritional standards. So, what can we do?
Just through having an understanding of this dynamic between consumer, third party aggregators and restaurants, we can make more informed decisions about how we dine. Supporting local restaurants directly, whether through in-house takeout or dining in, ensures they retain more of their hard-earned revenue. This support enables them to focus on delivering the best quality food, made with high-quality ingredients, providing the consumer with both flavour and nutrition.
Written by Katharine Beales