The global online food delivery service industry is currently estimated to be worth 126.91 billion dollars and is expected to grow to 192.16 billion by 2025. Despite this rapid growth, the industry faces one problem, adopting sustainable delivery methods.
Sustainable delivery comes in a variety of forms and is both the responsibility of the food delivery service and the restaurant that is making the food. Yet, it is no secret that the industry is struggling to adopt more sustainable options.
Food delivery is one of the biggest contributors to single-use plastics. These include things like plastic straws, utensils, food packaging material, and the bag it is delivered in. This doesn’t even factor in the gas used during the delivery.
Today, we are going to explain the problems that the food delivery service faces when it comes to sustainable delivery options.
How Does Online Food Delivery Work?
Online food delivery has become a staple of modern life due to its convenience. The actual process is simple enough.
Customers begin by visiting the food delivery services website or app if using a smartphone. They then browse a series of restaurants that the delivery service supports and place an order that is sent to the restaurant.
While the restaurant is preparing the food, a delivery driver is selected and sent to the restaurant to pick up the order. When they arrive, they pick up the food or wait until it is ready, and then make the final journey to the customer’s address.
Once the food is delivered the transaction is complete. While the process is simple to understand, it is far more complex behind the scenes. For example, the app will locate drivers that are already in the vicinity of the location and not on a different order.
In some cases, it will try to group up orders if there are multiple at a single restaurant to reduce the number of trips a driver makes. They also calculate fees that customers pay based on the availability of drivers in certain areas, or the volume of orders.
With all that said, from the consumer’s point of view, it is simple to order food online, which is why the services are so popular.
How Does Online Food Delivery Impact the Environment?
The truth is that it is not as simple as pointing at one aspect of food delivery and saying that is the problem. There are a variety of factors that come together to create a major problem for the industry.
Let’s take a look at some of these issues individually.
Plastic Waste
The food delivery service is one of the largest users of single-use plastics. Utensils, straws, packaging, bags, and more are all examples of single-use plastics. Naturally, this is adding to the world’s plastic pollution problem.
A report in 2021 found that 44% of plastic waste found in the ocean came from takeout food and drinks. While there is no way to distinguish products from food delivery and regular takeout, it is safe to say a portion came from food delivery services.
Now, you may be thinking, it’s not a problem if I recycle everything I use, but you would be mistaken.
The truth is that while most food containers are recyclable, most consumers do not bother to clean them. In many cases, if a food container contains too many remnants of food, it can be seen as contaminated. Instead of being recycled, it ends up in a landfill.
And it’s also worth pointing out that recycling rates in general are not very good. On average, the recycling rate for residential areas in the United States is only 21%. Thus, there’s a good chance it just gets thrown out regardless of whether it is recyclable.
Car Emissions
Since the food is delivered to your home, in most cases, it is done via car. Naturally, this will lead to an emissions problem. And it is no small amount.
DoorDash alone has over 7 million drivers and couriers that deliver food to customers. Not every driver uses a car, but many do. DoorDash is not the only delivery service in the market.
Uber Eats, Grubhub, Instacart and more exist. With millions of delivery drivers on the road, this adds more to the emissions problem. The average passenger vehicle that these drivers normally use produces 4.6 metric tons of greenhouse gasses each year.
The routes drivers take are getting more optimized, but the industry is still facing an efficiency problem. For example, it is very common for multiple drivers to show up at a restaurant collecting different orders.
It is worth pointing out that many drivers work for multiple food delivery services. That means there is most likely a very big overlap between the drivers for each business. As such, the true number of unique drivers is lower than the number suggests.
Food Waste
Food waste is a very common problem in the delivery industry. In fact, I am willing to bet anyone who frequently uses these apps has run into an issue where they were handed the wrong order or got extra items they never ordered.
In some cases, customers are happy when this happens, but it creates a tremendous problem for the industry.
For example, imagine your typical order pickup. The driver enters the restaurant is directed to the bag they need to pick up, and accidently grabs the wrong one. The driver leaves and drives to the customer’s location to make the delivery.
The customer opens the bag and realizes it isn’t their order. As a result, they call the delivery service, and their order gets remade and another driver is sent to pick up the food and deliver it again. This simple mistake not only wastes the food but results in repeated trips.
Server Emissions
Data centers around the US make up about 2% of the total energy usage. Naturally, the delivery services websites and phone apps all use access on top of the technology behind the scenes that customers don’t see.
For example, the industry employs powerful logistics software that utilizes AI to help locate the closest drivers to a restaurant to make a delivery, plot out the course for them, and in some cases, assign multiple orders together for greater efficiency.
Customers can follow the entire process by viewing a driver’s location at any time.
Naturally, all of that uses an enormous amount of power, and as AI becomes more powerful and a bigger part of the industry, it is expected to grow energy usage substantially. Thus, emissions will also increase as a direct result.
How Can They Achieve a Sustainable Delivery Model?
While the industry has a lot of problems to solve, the truth is that there are solutions to all of them and most food delivery services are moving towards a more sustainable delivery model.
Here are how these problems can be addressed by both companies and consumers.
Reduce Single-Use Plastic
One of the simplest ways to reduce plastic waste is to reduce the amount of plastic delivered with every order.
A simple way to do this would be if stores required consumers to check a box to receive utensils with their order. In fact, this is already done by many restaurants as it not only reduces plastic waste but saves the business money.
One of the most famous introductions of this would be in China, which saw utensil orders decrease by 600%. It did this by simply making the default option to not include utensils. The same concept can be applied to straws.
Another solution includes replacing plastic packaging with more sustainable options like cardboard. While this is not always an option for certain types of food, it does work for many popular items like burgers, pizza, and so on.
It’s also worth pointing out that in many cases, packaging is unnecessarily large. Not only does this create more plastic waste, but it also just makes delivering the food harder as it takes up more space in a vehicle.
Businesses should have their packaging optimized to perfectly fit their products. And in the case of food, it can help make your portions look bigger. After all, no one likes opening a container and seeing that it is only filled halfway.
Use Electric Vehicles & Bicycles
Reducing the emissions of millions of drivers is already achievable and many delivery services are trying to do just that.
Instead of using traditional internal combustion engines (ICE), these vehicles should be replaced with electric vehicles (EVs). Or in some cases, could be replaced with a bicycle in urban areas to eliminate emissions.
Uber Eats already has plans to reach zero emissions by 2030 and electrifying its car fleet is part of the plan. DoorDash is also moving in a similar direction and is helping its drivers (Dashers) secure affordable EV leases.
It is worth noting that while using a bicycle is also a very eco-friendly option, it is not always a good option in more rural locations where orders will typically require multiple miles before they can arrive.
However, in an urban area, bicycles are the best option. Not only from an emissions perspective but in crowded cities, reducing the number of cars on the road helps reduce the amount of traffic, thus shortening trips for all drivers.
Improve Delivery Efficiency
Perhaps one of the most impactful changes this industry can make to achieve a sustainable delivery model is to improve the efficiency of the delivery system. Ensuring that drivers close to a location get first pick at an order is a great way to reduce the distance goods travel.
Even more importantly, ensuring that drivers can pick up multiple orders at once can help reduce emissions drastically.
Without a doubt, this is where AI can help improve the delivery experience. AI can be utilized to quickly determine the most optimal route food will travel and the closest driver to take it. This will not only help ensure deliveries arrive faster but travel less distance.
It is also worth pointing out that stores can do a better job to help ensure drivers take the correct order, and that drivers deliver the right meals when handling multiple bags from the same location.
Naturally, this will require more training for employees at these restaurants, but it is something worth striving for as it will save money.
Power Data Centers with Renewable Energy
Virtually all businesses today utilize data centers around the globe to host their website. Users connect to these servers whenever they access the website, or use the app on their phones, thus these servers are on 24/7.
The electricity usage of these servers is massive. The computing power required continues to increase as AI is further incorporated into most businesses, and the power they require will also increase. Luckily, we already have a solution to this issue: renewable energy.
The good news is that most larger data centers are already moving towards renewable energy sources like solar and wind to power them.
Data centers are very large, thus the roofs make the perfect location to place solar panels and are typically far enough away where wind turbines can be present without issue. Many data centers are already built in locations with these factors in mind.
Most tech companies, the primary customers of these facilities, also want green energy. Because of the demand, the transition is already underway.
The Most Sustainable Delivery Is From Home
It’s worth pointing out that as a consumer, perhaps the best way to have a sustainable delivery is to not have one in the first place. While this may not be the best move, the truth is driving to a restaurant yourself is far more efficient.
You’ll order exactly what you want from where you want it. And you can choose to dine in the restaurant and avoid plastic packaging altogether. Or even better, don’t eat out as often.
A home-cooked meal is a superior option when it comes to a carbon footprint. You don’t have to travel, completely avoid plastic packaging, and you can even have leftovers for the next day.
How often do you order from a food delivery service? How important is a sustainable delivery model for you?
