Grocery service grew during Covid pandemic but has retreated amid competition and waning demand
The grocery courier firm Getir is to quit the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the US to focus on its home market of Turkey amid heavy competition and waning demand for rapid home deliveries.
The closure marks the latest shakeout of the fast grocery delivery industry which grew rapidly during the Covid pandemic but has sharply retreated since.
Continue reading...Customer dissatisfaction with service thought to be reason for expanding remit to Evri and DPD
Royal Mail is to lose its 360-year-old monopoly on delivering parcels from Post Office branches, after concerns about poor quality of service persuaded the postal service to sign deals with rivals Evri and DPD in the run-up to Christmas.
The two couriers would be added to the options available at the counter from later this month, the Post Office said, with customers given a choice for the first time.
Continue reading...Supermarket said to be considering third-party deal after share of UK market falls
Waitrose is reportedly in talks with Amazon to sell groceries via the internet marketplace, in an attempt to lure in more shoppers and claw back market share.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that the upmarket supermarket, part of the John Lewis Partnership, and Amazon were discussing a third-party deal, after the world’s biggest online retailer struck a similar agreement with the supermarket Iceland recently.
Continue reading...A strike has already been authorized by union members – who number 340,000 – should negotiations for a new contract fail
UPS workers moved closer to their first strike action in 27 years on Wednesday after the Teamsters Union said United Parcel Service “walked away” from negotiations over a new contract. The shipping giant denied the claim, lobbing its own accusation that the union had stopped negotiating.
The two sides traded salvoes in early morning statements even as they attempted to come to an agreement to prevent a strike when the current contract, which covers about 340,000 workers, expires at the end of the month.
Continue reading...First class stamp £1.10 from April and second class 75p as firm predicts £450m operating loss
The cost of a first class stamp will rise to £1.10 early next month, Royal Mail has announced, breaking the £1 barrier for the first time.
The company said it would increase the price of a first class stamp by 15p from 3 April, a year after it went up by 10p to 95p. The price of a second class stamp is also going up, by 7p to 75p.
The secondary headline on an earlier version of this article gave the incorrect price for second class stamps. This has now been corrected.
Continue reading...Exclusive: military veterans’ group RE:ACT gets £200,000 yearly contract to ensure welfare of lorry drivers gridlocked in Kent
The government has signed a £200,000-a-year contract with a disaster response charity established by the former head of Britain’s armed forces to help drivers stuck in lorry queues in Kent.
The Department for Transport has enlisted RE:ACT, which uses military veterans to distribute humanitarian aid in war zones and following natural disasters, amid concerns over driver welfare.
Continue reading...Consumer group Which? said many packages were thrown in ponds, arrived late or were left in the rain
Parcels chucked over fences into ponds, packages hidden in bins and laptops left out in the pouring rain – these are just some of the Christmas parcel delivery failures reported by consumers.
A delivery of pet tarantulas delayed overnight in transit was one of the strangest parcel problems reported to consumer group Which? in a survey of festive delivery difficulties.
Continue reading...Postal service says it needs to adapt to post-Covid business world amid near-9% drop in profits and union pay battle
Royal Mail has warned that the company is at a “crossroads” and needs to urgently adapt to the post-pandemic environment as parcel deliveries, originally boosted by Covid lockdowns, continue to wane.
It piles further pressure on the postal company, as it struggles to reach a pay deal with unionised staff who are pushing for an inflation-based pay rise as the cost of living soars.
Continue reading...Takeaway group in boardroom turmoil after two bosses exit before annual shareholder meeting
Just Eat Takeaway is facing boardroom turmoil after a senior executive stepped down amid an investigation by the courier group into a formal complaint regarding misconduct at a company event.
The board of Just Eat said it would not be putting Jörg Gerbig, its chief operating officer, forward for re-election at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, as it was due to engage an “external expert” to conduct an investigation into “possible personal misconduct”.
Continue reading...An army of drivers risked their health to get us goods during lockdown. But what is it like making deliveries while negotiating parking fines, traffic jams and spiralling costs?
Abdul Khan has a dream. He wants to own a farm, or maybe a zoo. He will keep rabbits, sheep, cows, dogs, cats, horses and pigeons. There will be a guesthouse that he can rent out to tourists. He doesn’t mind where the farm is – in the UK or back home in Pakistan – as long as there is room for his animals. “I love all the animals,” he says. “Farming is a dream life. I would love it.”
For now, Khan (not his real name) works in London as a courier for a delivery app. Khan, who is in his early 30s, didn’t expect to end up couriering. His plan was always to set up a business. He is a natural entrepreneur. When he was at school in Pakistan, he bought sandwiches and sold them for profit at a market. When he was studying business management, he sold sim cards at a train station. He was good at it – and it is not hard to see why. Khan is charming and charismatic, the sort of person who – as his mother-in-law always tells him – could sell sand to Arabs and ice to Inuit.
Continue reading...An army of riders ferry food around the South African city, their lives and travails largely unseen by the people they serve. Photojournalist James Oatway has spent several months documenting their challenges
It’s a Friday night in Johannesburg. Lockdown has just been eased as Covid infection rates have plateaued. The restive city is slowly springing back to life, with cars once again careering along the city’s recently empty arterial roads.
At the scene of a crash, the blue and red lights of emergency vehicles bathe the street in an eerie glow. Two motorbike food couriers have been knocked down by a car. The driver tried to flee but was apprehended by another motorist. One of the bikes has been flattened. Next to it lies a black canvas carrier bag bearing the Uber Eats logo.
A Congolese driver was seriously injured in a crash in Sandton. Footage showed a car going through a red light and hitting the rider. The vehicle did not stop and the driver has never been apprehended.
Continue reading...Next boss, thinktanks and unions criticise Boris Johnson, saying ‘shortages cannot be blustered away’
Boris Johnson’s vision for the UK has had a frosty reception with business and union leaders, with one thinktank condemning the prime minister’s speech to Conservative conference as “economically illiterate”.
The Adam Smith Institute’s head of research, Matthew Lesh, also called Johnson’s address “bombastic but vacuous”, while the travel industry union chief, Manuel Cortes, said it was “nothing but hot air”.
Continue reading...PM’s remarks come as Liz Truss insists it’s the role of business, not ministers, to resolve such problems
Queues for petrol and mass culls of pigs at farms because of a lack of abattoir workers are part of a necessary transition for Britain to emerge from a broken economic model based on low wages, Boris Johnson has argued.
His comments, on the first day of the Conservative conference, came as Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, insisted it was the role of business, not ministers, to sort out such problems.
Continue reading...Olaf Scholz, poised to become next chancellor, wades into row over HGV driver shortage
The centre-left politician in pole position to replace Angela Merkel as German chancellor has pinpointed the decision to end freedom of movement with Europe after Brexit as the reason for Britain’s petrol crisis.
Olaf Scholz, who is seeking to form a coalition government after the SPD emerged as the biggest party in Germany’s federal elections, said he hoped Boris Johnson would be able to deal with the consequences of the UK’s exit from the EU.
Continue reading...Takeaway company says it will invest £100m in north-east as it brings staff in-house
The takeaway company Just Eat is planning to open a customer service site in north-east England, which will employ 1,500 people as it brings jobs back from India and Bulgaria.
The business said that it would invest £100m in the region over the next five years, with staff working partly from home and partly from its new Sunderland-based office.
Continue reading...Exclusive: ministers to make traffic provisions indefinite in expectation of further cross-Channel disruption
Emergency powers to handle post-Brexit queues of lorries heading for France are being made permanent, signalling the government expects further cross-Channel disruption.
Operation Brock, a traffic management system designed to cope with queues of up to 13,000 lorries heading for mainland Europe across Kent, was meant to end by October 2021, after being extended once when the Brexit transition period ended in December 2020.
Continue reading...Dearth of delivery drivers, abattoir staff and fruit pickers caused by Covid and Brexit are fuelling wage rises with 5% hike in prices forecast
Food prices could rise by about 5% by the autumn – and turkeys and pigs in blankets could be in short supply this Christmas – as shortages of delivery drivers, abattoir staff and other workers drive up pay and other costs.
Industry insiders say that pay for lorry drivers and other supply chain workers, including abbatoir workers, plus vegetable and fruit pickers and packers have all risen because of difficulties in finding sufficient staff.
Continue reading...Combine the pandemic with rising raw material costs, stir in a labour shortage, a twist of Brexit, add a pinch of poor weather and voila …
Tinned tomatoes are a taken-for-granted store cupboard staple, relied upon by Britons to whip up home cooked favourites such as spaghetti bolognese. But the price could soon make you take notice, amid warnings of higher shopping bills, set against a backdrop of soaring global food prices.
From the packaging to the transportation and the energy used in manufacturing, nearly all aspects of the production of this popular ingredient now cost more. The crushed tomatoes alone are 30% dearer than a year ago, at €0.48 per kilo. The same pressures are driving the prices of many foods higher, meaning Britons will probably face bigger bills for groceries or meals out this autumn.
Continue reading...The takeaway service may have felt like a lifeline during lockdown, but its ambitious vision will dramatically change the way we eat
Shukran Best Kebab – the finest Turkish restaurant in the Seven Sisters area of north London, according to some people (although it is surrounded by fierce rivals to the throne) – joined Deliveroo two years ago, and back then it seemed like a no-brainer. “Life as a small, independent restaurant is hard and the profit margins are slim,” says Hüseyin Kurt, Shukran’s owner. “We wanted more customers and money coming in and Deliveroo seemed to offer that. I didn’t think there was a downside.” Within a few days of signing a contract with the company, a shiny new tablet computer arrived on which orders placed via Deliveroo appeared out of the ether with a satisfying ping.
The sense that something was wrong dawned gradually. Kurt, a gregarious, bearded man in his early 40s, who left his central Anatolian home town in 1995 and used his love of food to build a new life in the UK, ran the numbers: with Deliveroo’s commission amounting to 35% plus VAT on every order, he was forced to increase his prices to avoid losing money on each sale. It meant anyone buying his huge adana kofte or mixed shish kebabs through the Deliveroo app was in effect paying three surcharges for the convenience, as Deliveroo was also charging them a delivery and service fee. That went down badly with previously loyal customers who were presented with a vast number of often heavily discounted competitors when using the app.
Continue reading...Taskforce initiated after five riders died on the job recommends ‘refining the App’ and offering free mobile phone holders
A taskforce set up to improve safety after five delivery riders died on the job in the space of two months has suggested only minor changes to the industry, according to a draft of its report to be released next week.
The action plan has been criticised for “caving to the demands” of delivery companies by not setting any enforceable actions, and not mentioning the impact of time pressure, wages and working conditions.
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