Meal delivery A meal delivery service sends customers fresh or frozen
prepared meals delivered to their home or office, perhaps in the form of cooked, individually pre-portioned meals. Meals may come in small
tupperware containers and are often labeled with nutritional information. Some providers offer many options for specific diet types like vegetarian and vegan. These services often operate on a
subscription business model rather than by individual order as in
pizza delivery or with the broader category of
online food ordering. An alternative type of meal delivery service is a
meal kit, which distributes ingredients and recipes that customers prepare themselves. Meal delivery orders are typically on demand, intended to be eaten right away, and include hot, already-prepared food. While some service providers offer
subscription services, ordering for delivery usually involves contacting a local restaurant or chain by telephone or online. Online ordering is available in many countries, where some stores offer online menus and ordering. Since 1995, companies such as
Waiter.com have their own interfaces where customers order food from nearby restaurants that have partnered with the service. Meal delivery requires special technology and care, since the food items are already cooked and prepared, and can be easily damaged if dropped, tilted, or left out for long periods of time. Hotbags are often used to keep food warm. They are
thermal bags, typically made of
vinyl,
nylon, or
Cordura, that passively retain heat. In
Mumbai,
dabbawalas deliver hundreds of thousands of lunches (
tiffin) to paying subscribers every workday through a system of rail and bicycle links. The lunches are sent in
tiffin carriers, and are prepared in the late morning by either a restaurant or family member (typically a wife for a working husband, since many families still follow traditional asymmetrical
gender roles). The tiffins are then returned either in the afternoon or the next day by the same system. In the
Philippines, most commonly delivered meals are from fast food chains like
Jollibee,
McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Shakey's, KFC, etc. Orders are placed through their delivery websites, mobile apps, or by phone. Time of delivery usually takes around 30 to 45 minutes. In
China, consumers mainly place food delivery orders via
smartphone apps, with the number of users approaching 500 million people as of 2020. The transaction scale of China's food delivery market is expected to eventually surpass US $129.17 billion, an increase of 14.8% year-on-year.
Delivery of ingredients Community-supported agriculture schemes work on a
subscription box model, where a box of vegetables, dairy product, fish, or meat is delivered periodically from a local vendor. Various
meal kit delivery subscription services have started in Europe and North America since 2007. These typically have pre-measured ingredients designed for accompanying recipes.
Grocery delivery , which services metro
New York City Grocery delivery companies will deliver
groceries, pre-prep or pre-made meals, and more to customers. The companies work with brick and mortar stores or their own line of grocery items. These orders are typically larger and more expensive than normal meal deliveries, and are often not meant to be eaten right away, rather they are to replace items someone has run out of, like
flour or
milk. They are almost always done online, and typically take at least one day to deliver, though some companies offer same-day delivery. Many delivery services are required to offer delivery within two hours because frozen and fresh foods must be delivered before they spoil. Grocery delivery differs greatly from meal delivery in the sense that it is usually sent as a
parcel through common mailing services like
USPS or
FedEx, if it is only non-perishables. Since non-perishable items are normally packaged before arriving at grocery stores, they can easily be repackaged and delivered to customers without any special care. Sometimes,
dry ice is added to keep
perishable items fresh. Fresh and frozen foods complicate delivery which is done, usually by store/provider employees or third party services. The grocery delivery business emerged, with hundreds of
niche delivery companies springing up offering a variety of different services from weekly grocery restock to pre-planned, pre-measured family meals to simplify cooking. Online retailer giants have hopped on board too. Amazon.com, for example, offers
AmazonFresh delivery service. Amazon purchased
Whole Foods Market in 2017, and by 2018 Amazon had added Whole Foods items to its
Prime Now service, for 2-hour delivery in certain markets. According to
Forbes, grocery stores should deliver their own groceries to help prevent third party, part-time, non-store deliverers from becoming the 'face' or brand image of their local grocer. Limitations of having to pick and deliver groceries within a short period of time need to be remedied to allow for more flexibility to enable more deliveries to be more efficiently routed. Frozen and fresh food refrigeration units inside the store and the delivery vehicle, as well as lockable, consumer refrigeration boxes at the consumers home will be a solution that allows the groceries to be delivered at any time, further relieving delivery issues. This scenario will allow more local grocers to deliver with employees vs outside delivery services. ==Associated fees==