How the world eats is changing dramatically. A little under two decades ago, restaurant-quality meal delivery was still largely limited to foods such as pizza and Chinese. Nowadays, food delivery has become a global market worth more than $150 billion, having more than tripled since 2017. In the United States, the market has more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, following healthy historical growth of 8 percent.

The advent of appealing, user-friendly apps and tech-enabled driver networks, coupled with changing consumer expectations, has unlocked ready-to-eat food delivery as a major category. Lockdowns and physical-distancing requirements early on in the pandemic gave the category an enormous boost, with delivery becoming a lifeline for the hurting restaurant industry. Moving forward, it is poised to remain a permanent fixture in the dining landscape.

Even as the food-delivery ecosystem continues to expand, its economic structure is still evolving. Considerations such as brand, real estate, operating efficiency, breadth of offerings, and changing consumer habits will determine which stakeholders win or lose as the industry develops. Potential regulatory constraints, including possible changes to how drivers are compensated, will figure into the reshuffling. And while the industry has experienced explosive growth during the global pandemic, delivery platforms, with few exceptions, have remained unprofitable. As DoorDash chief operating officer Christopher Payne told the Wall Street Journal recently, “This is a cost-intensive business that is low-margin and scale driven.”¹

Despite such challenges, there are still major investments happening in the space, with recent fundraises, including Wolt (which raised $530 million in January 2021), REEF Technology ($700 million in November 2020), and Rebel Foods ($26.5 million in July 2020), and consolidation, including Uber’s acquisition of Postmates (for $2.65 billion in December 2020) and Just Eat Takeaway’s acquisition of Grubhub (for $7.3 billion in June 2021). Two recent IPOs—DoorDash in December 2020 and Deliveroo in March 2021—demonstrate the excitement and uncertainty still present in the sector. As the landscape shifts further in the wake of the global pandemic, new challenges, opportunities, and decision points are emerging for a complex web of players—including delivery platforms, restaurants, drivers, consumers, and other tech enablers. In parallel, the emergence of rapid delivery/quick-commerce platforms that have themselves raised significant funding, such as Getir ($550 million in June 2021) and JOKR ($170 million in July 2021), adds a new class of competitors to the fight for “share of stomach.”

Sizing the market

The most mature delivery markets worldwide—including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States—grew twofold (in the United States) to as much as fourfold (in Australia) in 2018 and 2019 . This exponential growth continued in 2020 and early 2021 to the point where these markets are now four to seven times larger than they were in 2018.

Before the pandemic put thousands of establishments out of business, the US restaurant industry was growing 3 to 4 percent per year. Delivery sales were increasing at roughly twice that pace (7 to 8 percent). While population growth was a factor, the bulk of the increase came at the expense of the grocery sector, with millennials and Gen Zers preferring the convenience of prepared meals.

This trend toward convenience has grown more pronounced during the pandemic. Between March and May 2020, when lockdowns in Europe and the United States were the most severe, the food-delivery market spiked. Significantly, it has maintained that trajectory, continuing to grow throughout 2020 and into 2021.

As we move into the last quarter of 2021, with vaccinations spurring many cities to reopen even as the Delta variant becomes more prevalent, the permanent implications of the 2020 market surge should become clearer. This includes the extent to which eating habits that formed during the start of the pandemic will endure.

Emerging delivery battlegrounds

In the not-so-distant past, restaurants directly handled the limited food delivery that existed. These days, an entire ecosystem of players is involved.

The United States is one of the more complex food-delivery markets, with four active players—DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, and Uber Eats—at the top, each commanding certain large urban markets. As of May 2021, DoorDash prevailed in San Jose (with 77 percent of the market), Houston (56 percent), Philadelphia (51 percent), and San Antonio (51 percent). Uber’s 2020 acquisition of Postmates leveled the playing field, but only slightly. Combined, Uber Eats and Postmates led the market in Los Angeles (50 percent) and New York City (41 percent) as of May 2021 (Exhibit 2). These figures change monthly as platforms continue to vie for local markets.