Just Eat embarks on brand refresh to reflect enlarged group

Restaurant marketplace Just Eat is embarking on a brand "refresh" to reflect the multibillion euro merger of its British parent and Amsterdam-based Takeaway. com.

The local arm of the multinational told The Irish Times that its fleet of cars, outdoor advertising, its television campaign and the Dublin bikes will all be rebranded in a move that is expected to cost the group as a whole millions of euro.

“It’s been a massive job,” Amanda Roche-Kelly, managing director of Just Eat’s Irish arm, said without putting a figure on the total investment.

The group has had to increase its workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic while rivals shed staff. Ms Roche-Kelly said it has increased its headcount in the Republic by 10 per cent.

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“Eventually as lockdown was going to go on and on people started getting back to their regular habits,” she said. As a result, the group took on extra staff to help those restaurants that had never delivered food before.

The pandemic caused a shift in consumer trends, Ms Roche-Kelly said, although consumers continued to “build takeaway into their weekly habits”.

Orders of healthy foods increased by 220 per cent during the lockdown as workers were forced to remain home while doughnut purchases also rose with Offbeat Doughnuts and Krispy Kreme seeing a boost.

Largest player

Competition in the food delivery sector had been heating up even prior to the pandemic with Just Eat, the largest player, grappling for market share with Deliveroo and Uber Eats.

Deliveroo, which operates a different model to Just Eat, has a Netflix-style subscription known as Deliveroo Plus, which costs €10.99 per month and allows members order as much food as they like without paying a delivery charge.

Asked whether Just Eat was considering a similar move, Ms Roche-Kelly said the group is “always looking at different ways” of doing things. “It’s too early to say a definitive yes but there’s lots more coming,” she said.

The parent group said last month it had agreed to buy US-based Grubhub for $7.3 billion in a deal that will give it a foothold in America where its rival Uber Eats has typically been stronger. Uber had courted GrubHub but those discussions were unsuccessful.