The landscape of food delivery has changed monumentally in the last ten years via mobile apps, and while the delivery industry may be providing a lot of gig-economy jobs, it's also created its own problems for restaurants and complaints from customers.
Ever gotten an order of fries that felt a little light? Or found a side dish missing from your DoorDash/UberEats/Caviar/Postmates order? It's possible that your delivery person was just a little peckish that hour, couldn't resist the smells, and since they don't owe anything to the business that made the food, maybe they just took a little something for themselves. The customer won't notice until they've long gone, and the app company will likely end up having to take responsibility for the complaint.
Between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 delivery people said they were guilty of stealing food from customers' orders in a recent survey by US Foods. That's 28 percent of all drivers surveyed — and only 21 percent of customers say they've noticed or suspected that food was missing at the hands of the driver.
Delivery drivers have complaints too — mostly about lack of tips and customers who won't answer their phones — but chief among customer complaints, besides missing food and basic stuff inherent with app delivery (cold food, limited menus), are about drivers who won't come all the way to their doors. 29 percent of app customers say that drivers would meet them somewhere halfway, and 34 percent said they've had drivers stay in their cars and pass food through their car window. Meanwhile 21 percent of deliverers say they're annoyed by having to go up elevators or up too many stairs.
Responses from the survey come from speaking with 1,518 American adults from unknown geographies in May of this year. The survey also spoke to just under 500 people who say they worked as drivers for food-delivery apps including UberEats, Grubhub, DoorDash and Postmates.
As ABC 7 notes from the survey, 85 percent of users of the apps say they want restaurants to start using tamper-proof containers to prevent food theft — but trying finding compostable versions of those...
Related: Mission Pie Says Delivery Apps Don't Play Fair, Should Face Legal Consequences