Deliveroo to roll out grocery service; offer vouchers, free deliveries

FOOD delivery firm Deliveroo Singapore has launched a "booster" fund to help its restaurants, customers and non-profit partners navigate the coronavirus pandemic, it said in a press statement on Monday.

The fund covers four initiatives: to provide free extended deliveries to boost orders for restaurants, to roll out a new grocery delivery service, to offer restaurant vouchers to customers, and to donate to charity Food from the Heart (FFTH).

From now till Oct 11, Deliveroo will invest S$350,000 to waive delivery fees for customers who order from restaurants that use their own delivery fleets and are out of the customers' usual delivery radius.

The platform's delivery fees typically range from S$5 to S$10 for orders with a minimum value of S$40 to S$50. Deliveroo is now waiving these fees, so that customers can get free delivery when they order from over 200 outlets - such as Crystal Jade, The Daily Cut and Three Buns - that are beyond their neighbourhoods.

The S$350,000 investment from Deliveroo will be used to cover the costs of the delivery fleets for these extended deliveries till Oct 11, the firm told The Business Times. Such costs are usually funded by the restaurants themselves.

Deliveroo said this funding will help restaurants take more orders and increase their average order value. This lets them cater to more customers and generate higher revenues per order, it added.

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Meanwhile, to provide more food options on its platform, Deliveroo will also partner British retail chain Marks & Spencer to launch the Singapore firm's grocery delivery service on Oct 12.

As part of the new fund, Deliveroo will provide some S$30,000 worth of discounts from Marks & Spencer in this new grocery category.

In addition, there will be up to S$90,000 worth of vouchers for customers to use on their local restaurant orders. The S$3 off S$30 spend vouchers can be used at participating outlets.

Deliveroo will sponsor up to 5,000 voucher redemptions worth S$15,000 in total. It will release promo codes every week for redemption at outlets such as A-One Claypot House, Soup Restaurant, Eighteen Chefs and Teppei Syokudo.

On top of that, selected restaurant partners will offer up to S$75,000 worth of vouchers, equivalent to 25,000 orders at 300 restaurants, till Oct 25.

Meanwhile, the food delivery firm will also support charity FFTH's food waste initiative, Clean Plate Campaign.

From Sept 28 to Oct 16, Deliveroo customers can participate in a social media challenge - by taking a photo of their clean plate or takeaway box after finishing their food, and uploading the photo onto Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #CleanPlateChallenge. They will need to tag Deliveroo and FFTH.

For every submission, the food delivery firm will donate S$1 to the charity, with donations to total up to S$10,000.

The "booster" fund, including the S$75,000 worth of vouchers offered by selected restaurant partners and the donations Deliveroo pledged to FFTH, thus amounts to about S$480,000.

Deliveroo on Monday also said it has launched a function during the "circuit-breaker" period to allow customers to tip restaurants by opting in to add an amount to their bill.