Food delivery has skyrocketed in the last five years, and if industry trends are any indication, the market is poised to reach new heights in the second half of the decade. With estimates of the global food delivery market expected to hit $154 billion in 2024, many of the promising food delivery trends will be responsible for moving the needle even further as 2030 approaches.
In today’s rapidly changing culinary landscape, revolutionary industry trends are constantly reshaping the face of food delivery. While the human element will always play an important role in the food arena, machine-assisted technology is likely to take center stage in the not-too-distant future.
Below are the top food ordering trends poised to play a starring role in 2024 and beyond.
Drone Delivery
The days when restaurant meals will be brought to customer doorsteps, not only by a delivery person, but by an unmanned drone are upon us. Though it might sound like something out of a science-fiction movie, the reality is that drone food delivery is an idea that's beginning to take off.
Fueled by consumer insistence for speedier, contactless transactions, the demand for drone delivery is growing significantly, especially in urban centers. With a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 47.5% projected by the year 2030, US market revenue is forecasted to reach a staggering $65 billion by 2030.
Sustainability is one of the key components driving the drone delivery sector, with initiatives focusing on planet-friendly vehicles, reduced ground traffic, and biodegradable packaging.
Revolutionizing the service industry by using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones can deliver meals from eateries to customers with increased speed and efficiently.
Benefits of Drone Food Delivery
Through the use of sensors and cameras that monitor and regulate the temperature throughout the delivery process, meals not only arrive fresher, but drones offer several other advantages over traditional delivery methods.
Faster and More Accurate Turnaround Times
Drones are capable of completing deliveries in less than 30 minutes. Through a sequence of steps, from the ordering process to safe landings, the drones’ movements are orchestrated by a centralized system that adheres to predetermined routes with delivery times accurate to within two seconds.
By circumventing street traffic, drones will ensure faster delivery times.
Orders Arrive Intact
Using FAA-certified drone systems that can fly approximately five miles roundtrip, a fastened delivery box guarantees that the order is delivered just the way it was originally packaged. Ensuring a quiet and secure delivery, orders are not dropped, but are instead gently lowered from 80 feet above using a wire mechanism so both food and beverages remain safe.
Safer Health Measures
Contactless delivery means reduced risk of contamination.
Sustainability
Drones for restaurant delivery offer numerous environmental benefits, making them a sustainable and efficient alternative to traditional delivery methods. With reduced emissions and noise pollution, restaurants using drone delivery can have a significantly smaller carbon footprint.
Accessibility
Drones can overcome regulatory challenges by operating in airspaces where traditional delivery methods face restrictions. They can access remote areas that are difficult to reach by road dues to construction or harsh weather conditions.
Reduced Traffic Congestion
Utilizing drones can also bring about a significant reduction in traffic congestion. This ensures that orders reach customers faster. This enhanced customer experience makes drone delivery a promising solution for reducing traffic congestion.
Disadvantages of Drone Delivery
Drone delivery offers a variety of benefits, but it also has several disadvantages.
Safety Concerns
One of the major concerns regarding the use of drones for restaurant delivery revolves around the potential safety risks they could pose. The integration of drones into the collective airspace raises questions about how to ensure their safe operation alongside other aircraft. There is also the need to address public concerns about privacy, noise, and the potential for accidents.
Limited Payload Capacity
Drones for restaurant delivery have a slight disadvantage in terms of their limited payload capacity. Along with limited payload capacity, battery life is also impacted by the weight being carried, reducing the amount of time drones can stay in the air. This can have a significant impact on catering delivery.
Weather Limitations
A significant drawback lies in a drone's vulnerability to adverse weather conditions such as wind, rain, or snow, which can severely impact the performance of drones, affecting their delivery range and battery life.
Privacy and Security Concerns
Privacy and security concerns could present challenges in the use of drones for restaurant delivery as customers may worry about their personal information being collected and used without their consent. Data security is also a concern, as unauthorized access to a customer's sensitive information can lead to malicious activities like identity theft.
Potential for Accidents
Delivery drones pose a significant risk of accidents during their operations.This could include mid-air collisions, crashes due to technical malfunctions, damage to property, and injury to people on the ground. These accidents could have serious insurance implications, as insurance coverage for drone operations is not yet well-established.
Drone Ordering Process
Customers place an online order.
The details of the order are communicated to the restaurant.
Items are prepared and packaged at the restaurant level and affixed to a carrier on a drone. To reduce the risk of spillage or damage during transit, the restaurant places the food in secure and leak-proof containers specifically designed for drone delivery.
Drones deliver the items to the specified location.
Flight Control
The flight routes for drone food delivery are determined using various factors, including weather and environmental conditions, distance, traffic, and delivery priority.
Real-Time Tracking
Drones are flown, tracked, and monitored using advanced micro-doppler radar, which offers precise drone activity tracking under a multitude of conditions using real-time tracking.
Once the order is dispatched, customers are able to monitor the delivery process in real-time through a mobile app or online platform. This allows customers to track the progress of their delivery with technology that allows for continuous monitoring of the drone’s location and the status of the package being delivered, which transparency, accountability, and effective management.
Landings
Drones employ Safe Precise Landing Software and Airspace Monitoring Service to guarantee safe delivery. The unmanned vehicles can either leave the order at a designated kiosk or utilize a wire-drop system to deliver food directly to the customer’s doorstep.
Testing
Rigorous testing processes to evaluate functionality, stability, and performance in real-world conditions are performed to ensure the safety and efficiency of drone deliveries.
Consumer Response
The response from customers towards drone food delivery has been positive, particularly due to the quicker delivery times in comparison to traditional methods. There have, however, been a few concerns raised by customers, such as apprehensions about drones malfunctioning as well as drones taking jobs away from the human sector.
Robot Delivery
Unmanned restaurant delivery will not be limited to the skies in the near future. Robots are another innovative online food delivery trends to look for in 2024.
Advantages of Robot Restaurant Delivery
Convenience
Even in the early stages of development, with plenty of kinks still to be addressed, robots are becoming more popular for restaurant delivery because they make deliveries easier than ever before.
Restaurant delivery robots can help deliver food to customers in places that are difficult or dangerous for human delivery drivers, such as in high or narrow spaces and unsafe neighborhoods.
Delivery robots can be either self-driving or driven by a human operator. Self-driving delivery robots are more expensive to buy and operate than those driven by humans, but because they don’t require as much supervision, they can be more cost-efficient in the long run.
Speed
Delivery robots can move quickly and smoothly through tight spaces, making them ideal for busy restaurants that need to get food to customers quickly.
Efficiency
By automating some or most of the tasks involved in food delivery, robots can free up employees to do other jobs, which can potentially lead to increased efficiency and productivity.
Accuracy
Because the human error factor is taken out of the equation, less mistakes are made, ensuring that correct order will be delivered to the correct location.
Reduced Labor Costs
Because robots don’t ask for a paycheck, they are less expensive for restaurants than human delivery drivers.
Disadvantages of Restaurant Delivery Robots
High Initial Cost
At this stage of the game, delivery robots are expensive to purchase and operate, making them unrealistic for smaller businesses that will not be able to justify the cost.
Difficult to program
Because robots are still a burgeoning technology, they can be difficult to program, a negative for small restaurant operators.
Slow-moving
Robots are an evolving technology, still at its earliest stages. Current robots can be cumbersome and slow-moving, making them much less desirable for busy restaurants than traditional human delivery.
AI-Assisted Marketing
Constantly coming up with new social media posts and ad copy can be time-consuming and daunting tasks. And hiring a marketing manager or copywriter to do it for you can be cost-prohibitive for an industry that operates on slim margins.
ChatGPT, a state-of-the-art language model developed by OpenAI that can understand and generate human-like text, can be used in a variety of restaurant applications.
With the ability to generate human-like text, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the way restaurants interact with customers.
Advantages of AI Marketing
Improved SEO
Improving SEO (search engine optimization) through keyword-rich content can help restaurants grow their business by making it easier for potential customers to find the business's website organically.
By including relevant keywords in website content, meta tags, and other key elements, restaurants can increase their visibility on search engines like Google and Yahoo. This can lead to more traffic to the website, which, in turn, can lead to higher profits.
Having keyword-rich content can also help to improve the quality of website visitors, as users who find the site organically are more likely to be interested in ordering the type of food offered on a restaurant's menu.
Generating Paid Ad Copy
Restaurant owners and managers already have enough to do without adding ad content creation to the list as it can be exhausting trying to constantly come up with eye-catching copy for paid ads. AI can make life easier on busy restaurant owners by writing ad copy, headlines, and descriptions for you. It also assists with character counts and coming up with enough variations to satisfy the algorithm.
Writing Menu Descriptions
Whether you're launching a new menu item, creating seasonal specials, or undergoing a complete menu overhaul, writing menu descriptions can be a tedious and difficult task for anyone that is not a professional writer, but can be especially tough for owners for whom English is not their first language.
Using AI tools to generate menu item descriptions that be used for printed and online menus, email marketing, social media posts, and paid ads can save time, money, and boost sales.
By Eileen Strauss
