Food Delivery Industry Growth — Where the Opportunity Is

The short version

Food delivery is not a fad that ended with the pandemic. The largest platforms reported strong growth through 2025. At the same time, the industry is consolidating into a handful of giants, and a long list of well-funded companies have pulled out of markets they could not win.

Both things are true, and a founder needs to hold both in mind. The market is growing. Most entrants still fail. The opportunity for a new or regional player is real, but it is narrower than the headlines suggest, and it is not about having a better app.

How big is food delivery, and is it still growing?

Global market-size estimates vary widely depending on whether they include grocery, restaurant-run delivery and pickup, so we prefer to look at what the listed companies actually reported. These are company figures, as of their latest full-year results.

Two things stand out. First, growth has not stopped: the big players are still adding double-digit growth on huge bases. Second, the biggest are now profitable or close to it. Talabat reported net income of $464 million for 2025. Delivery Hero reported adjusted EBITDA of roughly €903 million. That matters for newcomers, because profitable incumbents can afford to fight for longer than a start-up can.

Consolidation: the giants are buying each other

In 2025 the industry's biggest deals closed:

• DoorDash completed its acquisition of Deliveroo in October 2025, valuing it at about £2.9 billion. The combined group operates in more than 40 countries.
• Prosus completed its takeover of Just Eat Takeaway.com in 2025, after a roughly €4.1 billion all-cash offer, giving it control of a major European platform alongside its stake in Delivery Hero.

The direction is clear. In most large markets, two or three platforms take most of the orders. When Uber closed Uber Eats in seven markets in 2020, it said those markets did not offer "a clear route" to becoming the number one or number two operator. That is how the giants think: be first or second, or leave.

The honest part: who failed or exited, and why

Before you spend on an app, look at who has already tried. These are not small start-ups. They had capital, brands and good technology.

Africa has had its own wave of exits, including Jumia Food, Glovo in Ghana and Bolt Food in Nigeria; we cover those, with sources, in our separate article on Africa's food delivery opportunity.

The common thread is not bad software. It is unit economics: delivery fees and commissions that did not cover rider pay, discounts and marketing, in markets where a stronger rival kept spending. Rapid grocery (quick commerce) was especially brutal in Europe once lockdown demand faded, as Getir's retreat shows.

If companies with hundreds of millions in funding could not make those markets work, a newcomer will not win by copying them in the same city with less money.

Quick commerce: the growth engine, and the trap

Quick commerce means groceries and essentials delivered in roughly 10 to 30 minutes, usually from small "dark stores". It is now the fastest-growing part of several large platforms. Delivery Hero's quick-commerce GMV grew over 30% in 2025. Talabat's grocery and retail GMV grew 45% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and non-food reached about a third of its total GMV.

But quick commerce is capital-heavy: rent, stock, staff and waste in every dark store. It works where order density is very high and customers order often. Getir's retreat from Europe and the US shows what happens when density does not hold.

For a new player, the safer route into groceries is usually a marketplace: list existing supermarkets, mini-marts and pharmacies, and let them hold the stock. Add owned dark stores only after you have proven repeat orders in a dense area.

Cloud kitchens

Cloud kitchens (also called dark or ghost kitchens) are delivery-only kitchens, sometimes running several virtual brands from one site. They can help a delivery platform add supply where restaurants are thin, and they help restaurant groups test new brands cheaply.

The caution is the same as for any physical business: rent, staff and food cost come first, and the delivery platform's commission comes on top. Treat a cloud-kitchen plan as a restaurant business plan, not as a technology plan.

Regional differences

Where small and regional players can still win

Tier-2 and tier-3 cities

Large platforms prioritise capitals and big metros. Smaller cities often have fewer options, cheaper riders and restaurants that would welcome a lower commission. A local brand with a local team can build density faster than a global player that treats the city as a low priority.

Niches

A focused platform can win a segment the giants serve badly: halal-only, healthy meal plans, home cooks, campus delivery, late-night food, or a specific community. Niches have smaller markets but more loyal customers and lower marketing costs.

B2B and corporate delivery

Office lunches, hospital and factory catering, and scheduled bulk orders are predictable and can be ordered in advance, which makes routing efficient. Contracts give you repeat volume without paying for every customer through ads.

Groceries, pharmacy and local shops

Grocery and pharmacy orders are recurring needs, not occasional treats. A marketplace for local shops and licensed pharmacies can grow beside, or instead of, restaurant delivery. Check pharmacy and prescription rules carefully in your country first.

Software for restaurants and chains

Some of the best opportunities are not consumer marketplaces at all. Restaurant chains and grocery groups often want their own branded ordering apps to reduce dependence on high-commission platforms and to keep their customer data. Supplying and operating that technology is a business in its own right, and it does not require you to win a consumer price war.

Delivery as a service

Not every business wants a marketplace. Restaurants with their own app or WhatsApp orders still need riders. A local fleet that delivers for restaurants, shops and pharmacies on a per-delivery fee can build density first and add a consumer app later, once the routes and rider economics are proven.

What a newcomer must prove before spending on an app

This is the tough-love part. In the AI era, anyone can build software. A delivery app is now cheap and quick to produce. What decides whether you survive is your ability to sell and to operate. Before you spend serious money on technology, prove these things, even with WhatsApp, a spreadsheet and a few riders:

• Demand: real customers in one area ordering repeatedly, not friends trying it once.
• Supply: at least 20 to 30 restaurants or shops that have agreed to your commission and will stay.
• Rider economics: what a rider costs per delivery, and whether your delivery fee plus commission covers it.
• Contribution per order: average order value times commission, plus fees, minus rider cost, discounts and payment fees. If it is negative at small scale, know exactly how it turns positive.
• Customer acquisition cost: what you pay to get a customer who orders a second and third time.
• Operations: who handles a missing item at 9pm on a Friday, and how fast.
• Funding runway: enough to survive a price war with the incumbent for at least a year.
• Regulation: food-safety licences for merchants, rider employment rules, payment licensing.

If you cannot answer most of these, the app is not your problem yet.

Risks to take seriously

• Incumbent response. Profitable leaders can cut fees in your city for months.
• Rider regulation. Classification, minimum pay and insurance rules are changing in many countries.
• Commission caps. Some cities cap what platforms can charge restaurants.
• Fuel and currency shocks. In emerging markets, a fuel-price jump or devaluation can erase margins overnight.
• Discount addiction. Customers acquired with heavy coupons often leave when the coupons end.
• Fraud. Promo abuse and fake orders scale with every new promotion.

Where Joldisoft fits

We build food delivery platforms with customer, restaurant and rider apps plus an admin panel, ready for local payments, zones and multiple languages. White-label platforms start from $3,000, so you do not spend your runway on technology before you have proven demand. Custom food delivery MVPs start from $12,000 when your model genuinely needs different flows, and fully custom builds are scoped from there.

What we build with

For custom projects, our mobile apps use Flutter with GetX for Android and iOS from one codebase. Web storefronts and admin panels use React or Next.js. The backend runs on Node.js, with PostgreSQL as the database, WebSockets for live order and rider tracking, Firebase Cloud Messaging for push notifications, OTP phone verification and the payment gateways your market uses. Maps combine Google Maps with Mapbox, OpenStreetMap or HERE to balance accuracy and cost, and hosting is on a VPS or cloud provider chosen to fit your budget. After launch we offer ongoing maintenance, because a delivery platform is never finished.

We are direct about this: we prefer long-term partners who arrive with a sales and operations plan, not only an app idea. The app is the part we can make reliable and affordable. The city has to be won on the street.