In UK Food Delivery Battleground, Just Eat Takes #1 Spot with 45% Market Share

Uber Eats (27%) comes 2nd and Deliveroo (26%) 3rd, after both services grew slightly in the last year.

Key Takeaways:

• UK food delivery service market share changed slightly before and after COVID-19: Uber Eats market share increased 9 percentage points Deliveroo increased 7, while Just Eat fell. Foodhub remained about the same.
• The UK food delivery market (by customer spend) rose 128% in the last year.

Since our previous October 2020 U.S. Food Delivery Report we’ve seen how consumer demand and sales first began climbing in March of 2020 as pandemic restrictions came into place, reaching new heights and remaining steady since. On-demand food service platforms continue to expand to new markets and evolve. Across the pond, Amazon-backed Deliveroo has filed to IPO recently and is seeking to raise £1 billion (or $1.4 billion.) To see how third party food delivery service platforms sales are performing in the UK, Edison Trends analyzed over 200,000 transactions.

Which on-demand food platform has the highest overall market share across the UK?

Figure 1a: Chart shows weekly market share of spend for third-party food delivery services in the UK from December 30, 2019 — February 28, 2021, for Foodhub, Just Eat, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats, according to Edison Trends. Note: Due to rounding, numbers may not add to 100. Spend refers to what the customer spent on the order, excluding taxes, tips, and fees. This analysis was performed on over 200,000 UK-based transactions from 4 food delivery services: Just Eat, Foodhub, Uber Eats, and Deliveroo.

COVID-19 has left its mark on third party food delivery and pickup purchases in the United Kingdom. Social distancing caused a major shift in market share of spend starting the week of March 23, 2020, when many restaurants began closing. McDonald’s, which partners with Uber Eats and Just Eat, closed all UK-based restaurants and the two services saw their share of spend drop; subsequently, Just Eat reached the highest market share of spend it would see for the year, and Foodhub also briefly rose.

In 2020, stay-at-home restrictions went into effect on March 26th. McDonald’s began limited re-openings on May 13th, with all of their restaurants opening again on June 4th, after which market share for Uber Eats and Deliveroo returned to previous levels.

Between February 2020 and February 2021, the size of the market (by customer spend) rose 128%. As of the month of February 2021, Just Eat had 45% share of the money customers spent among these top selling food delivery services. Uber Eats was second with 27%, and Deliveroo had 26%. Looking at how market share has changed before and after COVID-19 (between the weeks of December 30, 2019 and February 22, 2021), Uber Eats market share increased 9 percentage points, Deliveroo increased 7, while Just Eat fell. Foodhub remained about the same.

As the market evolves, we will continue to stay on top of the latest trends. To learn more about how Edison Trends can help your business, contact us at bizdev@edison.tech. For more up-to-date insights in the e-commerce space, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on Twitter at @EdisonTrends.

*The data shown is based on a sample of anonymized and aggregated e-receipts from thousands of consumers in the United Kingdom.