the-food-delivery

aUnderstanding the long-term implications of the pandemic on consumer behavior and preferences for food delivery has helped businesses to adapt their delivery strategies accordingly and cater to the evolving needs of customers.

The food delivery market size, that’s expected to grow to $329 by 2029 and generate $1.4 trillion by 2027 in revenue confirms that food businesses are increasingly jumping on the food delivery bandwagon. However, the food delivery strategy that has become a new norm is now accompanied by more food delivery trends to meet changing customer expectations, gain a competitive advantage, and achieve sustainability.

Food delivery businesses delightfully embrace the food delivery app solution and innovative trends to grow and prosper their business boundlessly. Take a look at the following trends to know what’s happening around the food delivery business. Let’s dive in!

11 food delivery trends to consider in 2023

Food service businesses or restaurant owners want to remain relevant in the digital world while following the latest trends. Realizing this need, the 11 best trends are enlisted that you will explore in this section.

Third-party delivery services

The growth of third-party delivery services results in easier and more convenient deliveries. From the users’ perspective, food delivery is just a tap away. That’s why restaurants are increasingly partnering with third-party delivery services to step in with customers’ demands for instant deliveries. When food businesses partner with several third-party food delivery services, they can easily reach out to a larger number of customers and meet their need for instant gratification.

While partnering with food delivery services, businesses can control delivery operations by using customer orders, routes, directions, and more digitally.

Subscription-based delivery services

The delivery charges often make customers reluctant towards online food deliveries. That’s where subscription services turned out as a panacea. Subscription-based delivery services emerged as a new food delivery trend that facilitates food delivery services recurringly at reduced prices followed by no delivery charges.

Customers from urban cities who want food delivery services daily from local restaurants prefer to opt for subscription-based delivery services. This trend has helped the food businesses to survive that are standing on the edge of closure.

Delivery data analysis

Smart food businesses have recognized the value of organized data and analytics in optimizing delivery operations. Daily deliveries are generating petabytes of data that when analyzed by food businesses, the opportunities hidden in plain sight help the businesses at scale.

This is the reason food businesses are building either analytics teams or adopting delivery management software that helps in getting meaningful insights out of the data. The valuable data further helps in improving customer experience and increasing employee satisfaction.

Meal kit delivery

The global meal kit delivery services market size is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.20% between 2023 and 2028, reaching a value of around USD 54.2 billion by 2028. The enormous growth of meal kit delivery is due to its rising popularity among Gen Z and Millennials. Also, it’s a convenient option for customers with busy lifestyles as it provides ingredients in measured and pre-portioned form.

This is why food businesses started meal kit delivery services coming up with unique food options followed by the option provided to customers to select healthy ingredients to gain a major share of the market.

Custom menus

The growing trend for a healthy lifestyle has created a need for getting a food order made up with customized ingredients. Also, people having allergies to some ingredients look for custom menu options. As the online food delivery trend continues to grow, the custom menu trend will also grow.

The custom menu trend fulfills the need of customers to have healthy lifestyle choices or allergies. When the trend is used while offering food recommendations to customers, the results will be wonderful. For example, customers having allergies to mushroom when recommended to relish the tongue with Pizza without mushroom toppings, it delights the customers and turns them into loyal customers.

Dark kitchen

Ghost kitchens or dark kitchens are restaurants that don’t have physical locations but operate under the restaurant’s brand name. The dark kitchen takes care of food orders, deliveries, and marketing. Thereby eliminating the need to spend on dining space and other associated costs mitigates the risk and cost of building a new food business. You can expand the business at a lower risk.

Route optimization

Food delivery businesses are investing heavily in last-mile delivery services to meet consumers’ needs and gain a competitive advantage. However, this need is best met by route optimization techniques. With AI and ML technology leverage, the system recommends the route alongside directions to the drivers when they get delivery orders so that they can reach the customers in less time and fuel consumption.

Food delivery drones

The global drone package delivery market will grow from $2.10 billion in 2023 to $9.21 billion in 2027 at a CAGR of 44.7%. The stats showcase that food delivery drones are gaining traction because they have resolved issues related to food deliveries like- idle driver cost, idle time, last-mile delivery problems, security from malfunctioning, and other challenges. As the food delivery businesses continue to adopt drones, the trend continues to evolve and mature. Reshaping the food delivery industry, AI-driven drones enable faster and more accurate deliveries.

Shorten Delivery times

Undoubtedly, faster deliveries have become a standard in the digital world. The customers are also accustomed to convenient, speedy deliveries. The food businesses are adopting advanced technologies to reduce delivery times. When delivery time as short as one-hour need is fulfilled by the food businesses, the customers turn into loyal customers.

Self-deliveries

Presently, customers look for variety and the business offering them several options become their top preference. Food deliveries are no exception. Customers are increasingly looking for self-delivery options in addition to hybrid deliveries to eliminate the delivery cost. By enabling this option, customer experience will improve, the delivery process gets efficient, and businesses will have more chances of success.

AI-driven deliveries

Human-intervened food deliveries are often time-consuming and the possibility of errors exists too. When food deliveries are automated using AI technology, faster deliveries get enabled along with reduced delivery costs as an added benefit. The orders get automatically dispatched and customers can track the orders in real-time alongside updates for ETAs. Improved transparency and convenience are guaranteed in AI-driven food deliveries.

Environmental-friendly packaging

The growing awareness around environment-friendliness has made food businesses identify solutions that diminish carbon footprint. Food packaging is one of the areas where businesses are looking for biodegradable options as a replacement for plastic packaging. Biodegradable packaging that has already been adopted widely in homes is when adopted by food delivery businesses, total waste gets reduced. Transparent packaging is more sustainable and preferred by modern customers.

Summary

As technology advances, automation, and innovation are becoming a part and parcel of food delivery businesses. Coupling the food delivery venture with new food delivery trends is creating wonders worldwide. Considering delivery trends in 2023 allows businesses to align their strategies with changing consumer expectations, gain a competitive advantage, optimize operations, embrace sustainability, and make data-driven decisions for better performance in the food delivery industry.

By Anurag Rathod

Anurag Rathod is an Editor of Appclonescript.com, who is passionate for app-based startup solutions and on-demand business ideas. He believes in spreading tech trends. He is an avid reader and loves thinking out of the box to promote new technologies.