Uber’s first spin-off app is a food delivery service in Toronto
For the first time, Uber is expanding outside of its cab-hailing app. UberEATS meal deliver service (originally launched in 2014 and previously relegated to tab, separate pages, within the standard Uber app) now gets its own independent piece of software as the company looks to take on food delivery services like Seamless and Grubhub. So far the app is only available in Toronto, as the in-app version of the service was already quite popular in the area, so it was deemed the ideal place to test the new stand-alone service. The service delivers fresh food from local restaurants, or for diners in a hurry, a choice of five dishes that are pre-loaded in delivery cars and said to arrive within ten minutes. There is no word yet on when the separate service will launch in other cities.

Today Uber launches its first standalone app that isn’t about getting a ride. Called UberEATS, it’s a new food-ordering app that will be available in Toronto. It will let you order food the same way you order wheels–quickly and efficiently, with the added plus that you can track its progress from the moment you tap a button until it arrives at your door.

For the past year and a half, the company has been testing a service by the same name inside its ridesharing app. It lets you pick from a couple of options to receive food almost immediately. The in-app version is currently available in 12 cities, but Toronto’s new UberEATS app is different. Yes, it will offer between three and five daily dishes, labelled Instant Delivery, that will arrive within just a few minutes of your order. But, in addition, Uber’s new standalone app is taking on the entire food-order industry. It’s basically attempting to be a better Seamless.

UberEATS is a significant move for a company that is worth a reported $62.5-billion, based on the promise that it’s the future of the logistics business. One day, the logic goes, Uber will move anything anywhere. This app offers a window into what that future could look like. And it suggests Uber will follow a portfolio strategy for its apps–building standalone software for different services much like Facebook has done by breaking out Messenger from its main Facebook app.

UberEats

Food-ordering will be a more competitive business to crack than taxis. For one, when Uber launched ride-sharing, there were almost no digital options for rides, and many cities didn’t have reliable car service or taxis systems. By contrast, almost every city has several food-ordering apps, and many existing services—like Seamless and Postmates—have a head start on the logistics of getting a meal from a restaurant to a customer quickly. In Toronto, for instance, there are already at least three other offerings.The company chose this market to test the service because the in-app version of UberEATS has been popular there, and the local operations team is strong. It hopes to learn from this market before expanding the app to other cities.

“At Uber, the scale-this-to-the-entire-world button can be pressed very easily, and before we do that, we want to make sure we’re actually solving the problems people have,”said Jason Droege, Head of Uber Everything. Yes, that’s his real title, and it means he’s in charge of every service that doesn’t transport people. So far, it’s just UberEATS and a messaging service called UberRUSH.

By breaking UberEATS out into its own app, Uber hopes to retain the design simplicity that has been key to the company's success. “We felt we needed to resist the urge to overcomplicate things,” said Jason Droege. “With Uber, you hit a button, get a ride. When you think of thousands of meals, all of a sudden that experience starts to need its own world to make it as simple as possible.”

From concept to launch, the app came together in less than three months. Droege’s team first gathered alongside the local operations team in Toronto for a service design innovation workshop. The day-long brainstorm began with a series of exercises designed to help the group members set aside their preconceptions about meal delivery. “We start by asking, ‘who is our customer, and what do they need?’” said Droege. “Then we say, where is the world going to be a decade from now, and how do we get there?’”