Investors Still Hungry For Food Delivery!

Private and public investors are still bullish on the food delivery market.

As investors continue to pour millions into the third-party food delivery platforms, many analysts remains bullish about the sector.

Uber is expected to become a public company this week in a highly anticipated initial public offering. Even though Uber lost nearly $2 billion in 2018, experts still expect it to be valued at around $80-$90 billion. Part of the future anticipated profits will be driven by Uber Eats.

According to equity analysis firm Morningstar, Uber Eats is growing at a rapid rate and has already taken a large chunk of market share from competitors like Grubhub.

Uber Eats now accounts for over 25% of all U.S. food-delivery and takeout orders; that's up from about 11% a year and a half ago. Meanwhile, Grubhub's share of delivery and takeout orders have gone down to less than 40% from more than 60% in the same time period.

According to Morningstar, "there are actually a lot of Uber riders that, while they're getting a ride in an Uber, they're also ordering food from Uber Eats to arrive to their home by the time they get there. You're basically looking at marginal cost, or cost per transaction completed, declining over time. We think that's one of the reasons why margins are going to widen and why Uber will go toward profitability going forward."

Cash Is Still King

San Francisco joins Philadelphia and New Jersey in banning the practice of not accepting cash.

More Cities Ban Cashless Stores

San Francisco officials voted Tuesday to require brick-and-mortar retailers to take cash as payment, joining Philadelphia and New Jersey in banning a growing paperless practice that critics say discriminates against low-income people who may not have access to credit cards. The vote by the Board of Supervisors was unanimous.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 17 percent of African American households and 15 percent of Latino households have no bank account. Some people also prefer to use cash because they don’t want to leave a digital trail of where they have been and what they have bought.

San Francisco’s legislation requires brick-and-mortar businesses to accept cash for goods and some services. Temporary pop-up stores and internet-only businesses such as ride-hailing companies would be exempt, as would food trucks, which say they lack the resources to handle cash.

Philadelphia and New Jersey passed similar laws this year. Legislation requiring merchants to accept cash also has been introduced in New York City.

Fast growing salad chain Sweetgreen was a big proponent of cashless store. Last month it announced that it will accept cash at all its restaurants by year’s end, saying going cashless “had the unintended consequence of excluding those who prefer to pay or can only pay with cash.”

This just shows while there may be "no such thing as a dumb question" as the saying goes, there are plenty of dumb ideas.

Smells Fishy To Us

Shiok Raises $4.6 Million To Develop Cell-Based Shrimp

Singapore-based Shiok Meats recently completed a $4.6 million seed round, funding their ambition to create an alternative to the unsustainable shrimp industry. The founders leveraged their backgrounds in biology and cell science create the world’s first “clean shrimp.”

The current $40 billion shrimp industry suffers from three problems. It is unsustainable, it employs dubious labor practices, and up to 30% of products represented as shrimp are in fact some other sea creature.

Shiok showcased their first ever cell-based Shiok Shrimp dumpling at The Disruption in Food and Sustainability Summit (DFSS) in March in Singapore. Shiok Shrimp’s clean meat is grown under controlled and clean conditions, eliminating food-borne diseases, antibiotic resistance, and harmful chemicals.