Food delivery is not affected by the effects of the coronavirus. Rather. During the lockdown, the industry experienced rapid growth around the world. In March alone, in Italy, the volume of orders increased by 50% compared to the same month last year. Thus, while many sectors are suffering from the crisis, new and powerful giants are being born in food delivery. The Just Eat Takeaway group has just announced the acquisition of the US company Grubhub for $ 7.3 billion.
The result of the operation will be the birth of the largest home food delivery group outside of China. The two companies are already active in 25 countries. The new headquarters in Amsterdam. The transaction, subject to antitrust approval, is expected to close in early 2021.
«Matt Maloney (CEO and founder of Grubhub) and I are the latest veterans of food delivery» commented Jitse Groen, CEO of Just Eat Takeaway. “We started our companies at the beginning of the century, albeit on two different continents. We both believe that only companies with profitable and high-quality growth will be able to survive in our sector ». Groen, 42, created the Dutch platform in 2000 when he was a student at the University of Twente. He brought the service to several European countries. Then in Australia, Brazil, Canada. A year ago it started the merger with the English company Just Eat for about 7 billion, obtaining the go-ahead from the antitrust in April.
Uber, which operates in the food delivery market under the Uber Eats brand, had also submitted an offer for Grubhub. But it would then back out, fearing a long antitrust approval process.
As reported in a note, Just Eat Takeaway orders increased by 41% in April and May compared to the same period in 2019. Its platforms now have more than 155,000 restaurants in 23 countries, including Italy, and revenues of 416 million in 2019 Grubhub, on the other hand, has 24 million active users and 300,000 restaurants in over 4000 US cities. The new “group will be built around the four most profitable markets: the US, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.”
