Meal delivery company Just Eat Ireland increased its profits to more than €14 million last year as the company continued to benefit from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The group’s accounts for the year ended December 31st, 2021, show profit after tax amounted to just over €14 million, which was up from €12.5 million the year before, which was also impacted by the pandemic.
The company paid a dividend in the sum of €10 million for the period, which was the same as the year before.
The group’s turnover increased substantially from €43.4 million to more than €65 million. However, cost of sales also grew from €8.6 million to just under €21 million.
The average monthly number of employees, including the directors, during the year almost tripled from 35 to 102. Staff costs were €7.5 million, up from €2.7 million.
“Employee costs are significant to our company,” the group said in the accounts. “Our relationships with our employees is also very significant and we try to keep employees as fully informed as practicable about developments within the business.
“A breakdown in relations could adversely affect business performance. We maintain a continued effort to find the balance between reducing employment costs and maintaining our policy of rewarding people well for good performance.”
Among the principal risks the company cited was an increase in competition due to “low barriers of entry” into the marketplace.
“While the company is considered a market leader in the industry and has demonstrated increases in revenue and market share over the past number of years, potential competition from the other entities entering the market due to low barriers of entry may potentially have an impact on results in the future,” it said.
“This competition is welcome and whilst we monitor competitor activity carefully we continue to strive to provide our customers with a high quality service and results that has helped us retain our current foothold in the market.”
The food delivery sector was one of the big beneficiaries of the pandemic, but that effect has waned as consumers, faced with surging prices, have started to cut back.
Just Eat’s European division recently reported that it made an underlying quarterly profit earlier than expected as efforts to cut delivery and operating expenses offset falling orders.
The company’s chief executive Jitse Groen said in a media call that it did not see much impact from the cost-of-living crunch in the quarter as markets continued to stabilise after Covid-19 lockdowns.
“In terms of order behaviour of our existing customers, we don’t really see an impact yet from inflation or a more difficult environment for consumers,” he said.
Mr Groen said he expected food delivery to remain popular in northern Europe because of the number of more affordable restaurants on offer on Just Eat.
