Food & Drink

Hop-ping for a revolution! Deliveroo want change for Manchester takeaway tastes

Deliveroo are cooking up a foodie revolution in Manchester by bringing the city their fusion of restaurant-quality food and meals-on-wheels in a bid to change attitudes towards takeaways.

The delivery company, who already operate in London, Brighton and Cambridge, have recently started operations in the North West, which they hope will inspire a change in tastes across the region.

Daniel Fruhman, North West regional manager, told MM about how his company – aside from being about making money – works with a strong ethos to change attitudes about delivery food.

He told MM: “What do you think of when someone mentions delivery food? You think of fatty, greasy takeaway grub don’t you?

“If you go to any big American city – like New York – there’s always been this way of thinking that you can get good restaurant food delivered to your door, and that’s what we’re trying to bring to the UK.

“We’ve had a great response down in London and now’s the time to bring it to Manchester.”

Since its 2013 founding, Deliveroo has exploded and it currently boasts more than 50,000 unique users and recently attracted a £16million investment package, enabling them to roll out nationwide.

Delivery costs currently stand at a cost-effective price of £2.50, with the average order taking as little as 32 minutes to be transported.

Daniel, who is Manchester born and bred, revealed why the business could thrive in his hometown.

“Why Manchester? Well it’s the biggest city outside of London and there’s a lot going on,” he said.

“There are loads of great restaurants here and I think there’s a growing demand for us to deliver restaurant food right to people’s door.

“Hopefully in six months’ time we’ll have gone some way to changing perceptions of what delivery food can be, like we have in London.”

With a growing list of restaurant partners – including Sapporo Tepanyaki, Southern 11 and Tampopo – it’s not hard to imagine Deliveroo making a big splash.

Their systems also put restaurants in control of the supply, rather than forcing orders on overrun kitchens, which hinders both quality of food and promptness of delivery.

The company are careful not to spread themselves too thin – plans to expand into Cheshire and Liverpool will be put off until a foothold can be established in the city.

Daniel explained that there was plenty of youthful energy around the place; exactly what’s needed to make a start-up work.

“I’m 23, and a lot of the people at Deliveroo are quite young, but that’s start-ups for you,” he said. 

“But we’re all very passionate about what we do and it’s a fun place to work.

“We’re careful not to expand too quickly but at the moment we’re going from strength to strength and people are really taking to us. So we’ll see where it goes.”

Deliveroo genuinely have that air of being a ‘young’ company (all their deliveries are made on either push bikes or mopeds, for example) which tends to go down very well in cities like these.

And given they’ve come this far you wouldn’t be surprised if they gave Manchester’s curry houses and pizza parlours a real run for their money.

Who knows? Perhaps in a year’s time we’ll all struggle to remember Saturday nights without Carluccio’s Tortellini All’Emiliana brought to our door in 30 minutes or less.

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