The Dramatic Change in Food Delivery is Upon Us

The Lempert Report
February 26, 2019

Jimmy John’s, the sandwich chain, is the first national restaurant chain to take a stand against third-party delivery apps.

It seems as if there are new headlines on a daily basis on food delivery. How Instacart is changing its payment policies, or raising yet another round of financing, or how Shipt is signing up even more retailers, or how Stop & Shop is testing autonomus vehicle delivery.

But there is about to be a huge shift in food delivery and its something we predicted in our 2017 trend report. Jimmy John’s, the sandwich chain, is the first national restaurant chain to take a stand against third-party delivery apps including Uber Eats, GrubHub, and Door Dash. 

Jimmy John’s has a new marketing campaign in which it vows never to use delivery apps, calling them notoriously unreliable. But according to the CEO, James North, there is more to it.

“We want to control the experience from the fresh prep to the hand off to the customer.”  The chain commissioned a poll from Boston Consulting to find out what customers thought about food delivery.

Thirty-five percent of customers who have used such delivery services say they have experienced a problem with their deliveries. Seventy-six percent hold the restaurant itself at least partially responsible for any errors. Ninety-two percent of customers expect their food deliveries within 15 to 30 minutes of placing an order, while the largest delivery services average 49-minute delivery times.

Jimmy John’s uses its own drivers and couriers — the company along with its franchisees employ approximately 45,000 drivers at over 2,800 locations

It is the same thing we keep hearing from supermarkets, and we expect to see them follow Jimmy John’s lead.