Food delivery apps have made it easier than ever to access a wide variety of foods quickly. While a 3pm craving once had me popping across the road to a convenience store for some chips, I can now just as easily have an entrée from a restaurant on the other side of town delivered to my door.
The evolution of food delivery has moved from quick foodservice to convenience (P&C) to grocery rapid delivery and quick commerce.
PepsiCo Chief Marketing Officer Vandita Pandey says the sector has expanded into four major channels:
- Restaurant/cafe delivery – ready to make, ready to eat.
- Snack box occasion for meal solutions – eg, Hello Fresh, Marley Spoon (outside of traditional aggregator platforms).
- Existing stores creating virtual branded stores, eg, BP Couchfood for impulse delivery.
- New platforms for impulse delivery of snacks and groceries, eg, Voly and Milk Run.
“This has coincided with Covid, where consumers are snacking more than ever, and the growth of the in-home snacking occasion has risen disproportionally, taking share from on the go with new occasions – eg, work breaks for those working from home,” she says.
“The launch of quick commerce apps has dropped [average] delivery time from an hour to 15 minutes, unlocking the real impulse snacking occasion – ‘I want it now’ – for rising consumer demand.
“Overall, we’re seeing more consumers than ever before.”
Calbee Australia Senior Brand Manager Katarina Stoop says snacking has increased during the Covid era and has shown no signs of slowing as people return to their busy lifestyles.
“Consumers live busy lives and are constantly on the go, which means they don’t always have time to sit down and have their three key meals a day,” she says. “Further to this, lots of people are switching from the traditional three meals a day to smaller, more regular meals, and including snacking in this.”
Taronga Almonds owner Deborah Trajanovski points to the potential for consumers searching for deliveries to also buy snack foods online.
“I think only time will tell if this [food delivery] movement sticks or whether it was mainly a response to Covid,” she says. “However, it does mean that we have to constantly stay on our toes and keep thinking about these buying trends and how they may affect us, and whether there’s anything we can change or improve to meet these changes.”
Read more about snacks in the July issue of Convenience World.
