Top 10 Food Delivery Business Ideas for 2024
- Updated: Nov 13, 2024
- 11 min
CEO
Who doesn’t love a tasty meal delivered right to your door? Food delivery services are booming, with the market projected to hit $1.82 billion in revenue by 2025.
The demand spans demographics – busy families, young professionals, seniors, and even pets count as potential customers.
And with food outlets already ubiquitous across neighborhoods, coupling eateries and restaurants with delivery promises instant growth.
But in this increasingly competitive space, takeout newcomers need more than just an app. They need a creative, differentiated idea that caters to untapped opportunities in food tech.
Luckily, many innovative delivery models have yet to be explored.
So how can hungry entrepreneurs cook up the next big meal delivery concept for 2024 and turn consumer cravings into profits?
Read on for 10 trending business ideas ripe for disrupting the booming on-demand food space.
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Reasons to Consider Food Delivery Business for 2024
Did you know that the first-ever online pizza was established by Pizza Hut?
Yes, back in 1994, the delivery service is a nascent business idea. Today, online food ordering and delivery is a multi-billion dollar industry.
In different domains, we have seen organizations taking a proactive approach to address the voids left in the market. Platforms like Takeaway.com as well as Delivery Hero have become aced the aggregator platform domain.
On the other hand, several platform-to-consumer courier service business ideas have been realized with Ubereats and Deliveroo.
To answer your questions of why to look into a courier business idea, read on.
- Day by day, your potential customer is getting busy in their schedules. So, this leaves less time to cook food. The only option they have is to order food online.
- Technology has made the ordering and getting food delivered to a home similar to a walk in the park.
- A colossal number of restaurants and eating places have the potential to fulfill customer demand.
Thus, working on your courier idea can turn out to be a great business provided you implement and validate business ideas properly.
More than the ideas or sentiment, the food delivery business is a numbers game.
- From 2019 to 2023, global food delivery will grow at a CAGR of 11.51%.
- The total valuation is said to be around $154 billion. This is more than the GDP of 134 countries.
But why is door-to-door delivery so popular with customers? Convenience is a big reason why customers prefer to shop online, and it’s clear that home delivery played a crucial role in mitigating contact during the pandemic.
The benefits of door-to-door delivery go way beyond that for the customer, especially for people living in rural areas who have little access to goods.
Upper list out the best apps for drivers to help businesses efficiently serve these remote areas, ensuring that even customers in rural locations can enjoy the convenience of home delivery.
If you want to maximize ROI in any industry, you basically have to do one thing: listen to your customers. Any food delivery business you come up with will live and die by your customers!
Enough of the numbers and other stuff. Let’s get to the creme de la creme of the article, the best food delivery business ideas for 2021.
10 Trending Food Delivery App Ideas for 2024
Frozen Food Delivery Apps
Frozen food provides us with many benefits over using other forms. People prefer frozen food because the seasonal availability of food is no longer a problem. You can have anything, anytime. Along with this, the convenience frozen food provides matchless. You just have to take the food out of the fridge, heat it and eat it! That’s it!
As we stay home during the pandemic, the demand for frozen food increases. This is an enormously growing market that is poised to grow to 385 Billion Dollars by 2027.
| Demand | According to a report, the frozen food market in the Asia Pacific region is poised to grow at around 4% annually. Apart from this growth, the frozen food industry will also be positively affected by the shift to healthy food items caused by the pandemic. |
| Key Insights | This market has different types of consumers. You will have to devise strategies for three types of customers:
Apart from this, you’ll also have to develop plans to compete with the existing food delivery startups that don’t primarily sell frozen food but can do so. |
| Examples | AmazonFresh, Walmart |
Bakery Item Delivery Apps
Chocolate fudge cakes, pastries, waffles, and whatnot! These are some items that anyone on earth can’t say no to! According to a survey conducted before the pandemic, the global volume of bread and bakery items produced was around 90 million tons and is expected to reach a whopping 150 million tons by 2025.
Although local bakeries offer the same service, along with some grocery delivery apps, there are still many chances to grow. Most of these startups usually have awful apps, so you can easily beat them out and become a market leader if your tech is good.
| Demand | The volume of shipments of commercial bakery products is more than USD 30 Billion in the US alone! |
| Key Insights | As discussed above, you will have to face competition from local bakeries and other similar apps. But, you can solve this problem forever. You can provide a platform for sellers(bakeries, majorly) to sell their items on your app – where you function as a delivery service provider. You can sell your products alongside theirs as well, just like Amazon does. |
| Examples | Bakingo, Grubhub |
Food Delivery Apps with Nutritionist Features
Yes, you read it right! An app that is also a nutritionist. The Human Nutrition market is forecasted to reach 465 Billion Dollars by 2025. This number shows the future growth of the nutrition market and the health consciousness of the people as well.
Again, the pandemic also hugely affected, and people are moving towards healthier food choices. You can cash on their traction and also contribute to a better society in terms of health and food.
| Demand | The personalized nutrition apps and programs have a growth rate of 15% per annum. |
| Key Insights | You don’t need to be a nutritionist to start this type of app. In fact, not being a nutritionist will turn out to betraction and an advantage for you. You can develop a platform-based app for the users, earning commission from both nutritionists and buyers. Along with the commission, as you provide the products, you will have two separate income streams. |
| Examples | HealthyOut |
Grocery Delivery Startups
Not just providing food, but you can also look into helping your customers with groceries. As a courier business idea, it is profitable as every household needs groceries.
Amid the pandemic, online delivery business is one of the high growing ideas that we have observed today. The cumulative growth rate is expected to increase from 51% to 57% from 2020 to 2021.
| Demand | Apart from the forced shutdown of the brick and mortar businesses, the ease of use and convenience is driving the demand. Before the spread of coronavirus, the online grocery market grew by 22% in 2019. |
| Key Insights | There are two models that you can operate among the courier service business ideas.
Do not just stick to the basic grocery items. Explore some other options that can pique the interest of the end-user. |
| Examples | Shipt, Boxed, AmazonFresh. |
Corporate Catering Delivery
Offices and enterprises spend millions of dollars on providing free lunch to their employees. It can be in the form of coupons or pre-packaged foods. However, such food delivery business ideas work well if you have good clients.
Such business models operate on reputation and effective marketing. It is essential to market your courier business ideas to large enterprises and convince them of your services.
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| Demand | Offices and other corporate addresses order food online for their employees under two conditions:
There are various benefits of free food at work. Even Google and Facebook provide free food to employees. Hence, capitalizing on similar food delivery business ideas can be profitable. |
| Key Insights | Starting a corporate delivery service can be done in two ways.
Proper market research, identifying the target audience, and analyzing associates is a prerequisite to developing such a business. |
| Examples | Platterz, ezcater, EAT Club. |
Pet Food Delivery Services
The American Pet Products Association observes that 80 million households own a pet.
Also, the pet industry has a total worth of $95.7 billion as of 2019.
Isn’t this one of the wonderful ideas to open a pet food delivery business?
Since the market is wide enough, you can start small and then scale up as you grow.
| Demand | As per an estimate, the pet food industry will be worth $92,747 million by 2022 in the US alone. This is after identifying a Y-o-Y CAGR of 4.1% starting from 2016 through 2022. The global pet food industry insights are even better, with expected growth to $88.5 billion by 2023. This projects the rise in potential demand in the coming years. Hence, capitalizing on such courier business ideas will be profitable. |
| Key Insights | Various big pet food manufacturing companies are already accepting online orders. Large retailers like Chewy, Lowe’s Home Depot, Petco have operationalized online ordering. It is time to stop thinking and start planning your pet food courier service business ideas. You may want to explore how you can turn this idea into a subscription box business model and consider the benefits of offering regular delivery options to pet owners. Not only raw food, several restaurants are specializing in preparing pet food. Examples include Shake Shack, Harbor Cafe, Cafe Limelight, among others. Build an association with these restaurants to bring forth your concept and develop with it. |
| Examples | Petflow and Pet Plate. |
Homemade Meal Delivery
Another one of great food delivery business ideas is servicing the needs of customers with homemade food.
In this segment of the industry, the most viable option is to work with a delivery-only model.
Even though the homemade food industry is still at the nascent stages, there isn’t much data to show for its progress.
However, the market for homemade delivery business ideas is in the works.
| Demand | Eating out has become a norm rather than a necessity today. The long work hours have left the professionals wanting for more. Where hygiene is the primary concern, taste and variety are also looked at while ordering. Several applications are working in this domain. This includes Homemade and Watscooking. |
| Key Insights | Working with similar delivery service business ideas will require setting up a unique operation. Identifying and partnering up with homemade food providers is essential. Majorly, you may have to develop links with mothers and grandmothers, who prepare food at their homes. Since, the entire market is not so much developed, conduct proper research before investing your resources in it. |
| Examples | Ootabox |
Fruit Basket Delivery Businesses
Who doesn’t like to eat fruits?
We all love to eat healthy fruits, but not everybody is keen to buy them from the farmer’s market. Delivery business ideas modeled on these kinds of foods is a great way to diversify the market.
Moreover, with a rise in the vegan trend, a higher proportion of people want to order fruit online.
| Demand | The fruit and vegetable industry of the US was worth $104 billion in 2016. In the four years after that, the online delivery service business ideas have taken the entire industry by a storm. ‘ Although the online food delivery business idea can also be a part of grocery shopping, setting up a dedicated service for the same can be better. As an added element to the fruit delivery services, you can also add fruit salad delivery services. Office going individuals need some healthy food items, and a fruit salad will appease with them. |
| Key Insights | Organic fruit courier service business ideas is an amazing way to start. Organic fruits diet is a hit with health-conscious people. As a delivery-only model connects with the existing fruit ordering applications like FreshDirect or Farmboxdirect. Another one of unique business ideas is to partner up your courier service with the farm owners directly. However, in this model, you may also have to prepare an ordering segment within the application. |
| Examples | The Fruit Guys, Edible arrangements, and Imperfect Foods. |
Meal Kit Delivery Services
Ready to cook and eat meals offer convenience and can satisfy hunger pangs. More importantly, implementing such ideas can help develop a profitable food delivery business.
Couples, school going kids, college students, and professionals can be your potential customers. As the ingredients are partly-cooked, individuals of any age can make them at home without putting in much effort.
| Demand | On a global scale, the courier business ideas catering to meal kits are scaling up. The Y-o-Y growth of such services is 17.78% between 2020 to 2024. Within the same period, the entire industry is poised to grow by $15.93 billion. Hence, the demand is present. The North American region alone takes 56% of the market share. The courier service business ideas fall into the category of distribution channels. Hence, you need to use the technological resources to develop a delivery service product for the end-users. |
| Key Insights | The Meal kit delivery services are beneficial for those who are busy in their professional or personal lives. These are the individuals who are looking for healthier food options that are delivered to their doorstep. Various food or meal kit services like HelloFresh are operating in the industry. Most of them cater to every segment of the market. However, there are a few that cater to specific diet plans. For instance, Freshly offers gluten and peanut-free meals. With this kind of food business and delivery, ideas are taking either of the two routes.
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| Examples | Dinnerly |
Packed Lunch Delivery Business Ideas
Starting a delivery service for packed food is another one of great business ideas. The good thing is that the packed lunches are not just limited to food items.
Some organizations in the US are providing packed lunches to school. These sorts of food delivery business ideas need to adhere to the USDA-FNS norms.
Apart from this, millennials and the middle-aged office going individuals can also benefit from pre-packed and ready to eat lunches.
| Demand | Packed lunches are similar to the food users can order from a restaurant. However, the difference lies in the clientele. Research conducted in Maryland for packaged foods and lunches is expected to grow by double digits in the following years. The demand might have slugged due to the pandemic (the exact results are subject to full-scale research). The market sentiment is positive, and the end-users are ready to accept new ideas in the packed lunch food delivery business. |
| Key Insights | There is a difference between packed foods and packed lunches. Where packaged foods can also include the ready to cook and frozen food items. Packed lunches contain dishes that are already prepared. The idea is to develop a courier business for packaged lunches. Starting with the local distribution of such foods and addressing the needs of the individuals first will be beneficial. |
| Example | Revolution Foods |
Want to Start Your Own Delivery Service?
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