Editor’s note: This article was first published in February 2011, and its figures are from that time: presence in 10 countries, over 13,000 partner restaurants, 95 restaurants in Madrid and a target of 500 in Spain for 2011. Just Eat has since grown far larger and merged with Takeaway.com in 2020.
The Danish company Just Eat is considered the eBay of food, because what this business really does is put customers in touch with sellers, in this case restaurants. In just 10 years it has gained a presence in 10 countries, including the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada and now Spain.
Just Eat currently has more than 13,000 partner restaurants around the world, which between them have already served more than 30 million meals. The success of this business lies above all in variety: its partner restaurants include Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Mediterranean places, among others, so you can order anything from an upscale dish to pizzas, burgers or pasta.
The customer just goes to the Just Eat website and chooses the meal they want. The order reaches the central office, which automatically sends it to the nearest partner restaurant that specializes in that type of food. In roughly 45 minutes, the customer has the food at home.
Another key part of Just Eat’s success is its business model: it acts purely as an intermediary, so it doesn’t need its own logistics or delivery network. It leaves those tasks to its partner restaurants, which keeps its own staff to a minimum.
The restaurants that work with Just Eat, in turn, see their output rise and get the chance to reach more customers, so the partnership benefits them too.
Right now in Spain, the service is only available in the city of Madrid, where it already has 95 partner restaurants. For 2011, the company aims to reach 500 partner restaurants and to expand to Barcelona and other Spanish cities.
As we can see, in times of crisis, food with a touch of innovation that takes advantage of new technologies ends up being a very profitable business, to the point that the fund INDITEX Ventures has already invested 12 million euros in the company.
Further reading
- Food business ideas: fast and specialty cooking
- A takeaway food business with added value
- How to start a business with no money
- The advantages of starting a business in times of crisis
Featured image: Javier Perez Montes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
