Deliveroo, the online food delivery platform, has launched its service in Manchester marking its third UK city behind London and Brighton.
The Manchester operation will deliver food from restaurants including La Bandera, Sapporo Tepanyaki, Umezushi, Ocean Treasure, Ning, Yang Sing and Tampopo.
Food is then delivered across the city via mopeds, electric bikes and pushbikes to homes, offices and workplaces.
The company is launching in more cities in the coming months and eventually cover the whole country, according to co-founder William Shu.
In December, Shu told M&C Report that expansion plans would focus on major cities, including Leeds and Bristol as imminent targets behind Manchester, and then seeking to serve satellite towns and areas from there.
He said: “We want to be everywhere in the UK that is right for us. I would hope that we can be established in the major cities by the end of 2015 and then focus on supplying the areas around there.
“The things we look for in a site are probably the same as any restaurant would look for – population density, restaurant supply and general level of affluence.
“For Manchester we have promoted someone from the team who is from that area because it’s really important to us to have that local knowledge. The other real challenge for us to get good drivers, because that can absolutely make or break our business model.
“It’s interesting that the mode of transport can change depending on what area you are looking at – in Manchester there aren’t so many scooters and in London we are now finding that in some areas push bikes are a quicker way to get around.”
Shu said partnerships with restaurants were developing well with recent collaborations with the Real Greek, Red Dog Sandwiches and Gaucho.
