Tech and Teen

Uber Eats’ first-ever Future of Food Summit

Uber Eats’ first-ever Future of Food Summit, the global platform for on-demand food delivery, announced several new business metrics:

Asia-Pacific is one of the fastest growing regions for Uber Eats globally;
The number of restaurant partners on Eats in the region has more than doubled since the start of 2019;
The number of active customers and delivery partners on the platform has tripled over the past year; and,
Asia-Pacific orders more Uber Eats than any other geography in the world, with 1.5 million unique cuisine choices available on the platform in the region.

The 2-day summit hosts 300 industry and leaders from across Asia Pacific for keynotes and panel discussions featuring Uber executives as well as notable F&B figures from around the region including Coca-Cola, Cafe Coffee Day, Burger King, Baskin Robbins, Guzman y Gomez, Chai Time and Black Sheep Restaurant.

In conjunction with the summit, Deloitte also presented a report titled Future of Food: How Technology and Global Trends are Transforming the Food Industry. A significant focal point of the findings explores how the F&B ecosystem is becoming more integrated and codependent, with technology creating a more diverse food ecosystem. Changing consumer preferences are also blurring the lines between players (e.g. grocers are selling ready-to-eat meals).

Raj Beri, Regional Head of Uber Eats, APAC, explained, “Consumers in APAC order more on Uber Eats than any other geography in the world. We grew from 29 to 75 cities in 2018 alone, and today we partner with over 71,000 active restaurants in APAC. Given our unique position in this ecosystem, we saw a way to create even more value for our community by connecting restaurant partners through the Future of Food Summit – leveraging the power of our network to build a stronger future for the industry together.”

A third of consumers in Asia are now using food delivery services, with 7% of them putting in a food delivery order at least once a week. The Deloitte report also showed a greater share of personal budgets going to food prepared outside of the home, with convenience being a big driving factor.

Uber Eats also shared how it will be building on its platform to better support restaurant partners in 2020 and beyond. Initial product developments include:

Promoting efficiency in restaurant operations through flexible POS Integration
Providing deeper insights by
- Combining in-store and delivery customer insights;
- Giving restaurant partners a view on revenue (sale, order volume, ticket size) and opportunities (missed orders, inaccurate orders, downtime); and,
- Listing best-selling dishes and how customers review them.
Enabling Marketing Tools on the Uber Eats platform
- Running campaigns and promotions; and,
- Performance metrics to support optimising spend.

This follows the recent expansion of the virtual restaurant program, the announcement of a forthcoming drone delivery pilot in the US, new delivery categories such as convenience store items and the introduction of new delivery models including unlocking the platform to have restaurant delivery staff serve their orders and grow their business with Uber Eats.

At the end of the first day, winners of the first-ever Uber Eats APAC Restaurant Partners Awards 2019 were also announced across 9 categories.