Product Profile: Grubhub
INDUSTRY
food
Category
food/grocery delivery services
product Profiled
Grubhub prepared food delivery service
H-Score
23
ranked 24th of 25 within the food industry
ranked 72nd of 76 overall
product description
Grubhub is a food delivery service which uses independent contractors to deliver food from third-party vendors to customers. Grubhub+ is a subscription-based service that allows subscribers to get free delivery on orders over $12 along with other perks and promotions.(1)
product use
Customers login to either the website or app, put their address and choose which restaurant they want from a variety of options. They then choose what to order from the restaurant, pay for the food and the service and wait for a Grubhub delivery person to pick up the order and bring it to the customer’s address. Customers also have the option of picking up their orders at certain restaurants. In addition to the mobile ordering option, Grubhub has also installed kiosks for quick takeout ordering in select restaurants (2) and is enabling “just walk out” cashierless payments in stores on college campuses.(3)
who’s affected
Grubhub is available to customers, generally in metropolitan areas, who have access to credit cards. Grubhub does not offer payment through SNAP/EBT cards for people receiving food assistance. Grubhub is estimated to have 9% of the US food delivery market as of October 2023.(4)
influence on health-related behaviors
EATING
slight to moderate negative influence
Grubhub primarily offers delivery of restaurant products, though it also offers delivery from certain convenience stores (e.g. Wawa and 7-11). It’s not clear how Grubhub users split their orders between restaurants and convenience stores.
Prepared food delivery services often substitute less healthy restaurant or fast food options for home-cooked meals. In general, fresh, home-cooked meals have been shown to be healthier than meals eaten at or taken out from sit-down or fast food restaurants.(5-9) People who cook at home more frequently also tend to have diets that have higher compliance with dietary guidelines.(10)
Grubhub has indicated that its most frequently ordered dishes are, in order: Burrito (bowl or regular); Cheeseburger; Cheese Pizza; Pad Thai; and Chicken Quesadilla.(11)
In Building H’s consumer research, 47% of users of food delivery services (not specific to Grubhub) say that their orders typically replace home-cooked meals. In addition, the research showed that 37% of users eat home-cooked meals five or more nights a week vs. 58% of the general public.(12)
Building H’s consumer research showed that users of food delivery services (not specific to Grubhub) more often order from sit-down restaurants (28% say usually or always), than from fast food restaurants (18%) or convenience stores (11%).(13)
Grubhub does have a “Healthy” option for food types, which, in our testing, was listed after a dozen cuisine options.(14) The list appears to be sorted by popularity in the user’s geographic region. It is not clear how Grubhub determines which restaurants merit the “Healthy” tag.
- Work across the industry to pursue options to rate food establishments on the basis of how healthy their menus are and then integrate these ratings into the presentation of restaurant options and search results. Options for this integration could include featuring higher-rated establishments more prominently, using the ratings to filter search results and raising healthier establishments higher in result lists; or displaying the ratings in the results lists.
- Healthfulness ratings at the individual menu item level could also be used to nudge users toward healthier items.
- Provide nutrition information (menu labeling) required to be posted by chain restaurants alongside menu items from those restaurants.
- Enable users to express preferences for how healthy they want their diet to be; align recommendations with those preferences; and provide users with feedback on how well their choices are supporting those preferences.
PHYSICAL ACTVITY
moderate negative influence
By decreasing barriers to obtaining restaurant food, Grubhub has made it possible for people to have a dining out experience without the physical activity of getting to and from the restaurant.
Grubhub does offer a pickup option and it offers a 5% discount on pickup orders for Grubhub+ members.(15) It is not clear how often users select pickup instead of delivery.
- Consider setting pickup (vs. delivery) to be the default option, subject to conditions such as distance, weather and individual abilities.
- Prompt pickup users to walk if the distance is relatively short (i.e. less than a mile), subject to conditions such as weather and individual abilities.
- Promote the pickup option as an alternative prior to finalizing a delivery order.
Sleeping
slight negative influence
Grubhub drivers can work at all hours, as long as there are establishments open at the time. Through their services, getting late night food is more convenient than ever before, and consequently, customers could forego sleep in favor of late night food.
In addition, studies have shown that eating within three hours before bedtime increases the likelihood of sleep disruption.(16)
By offering the opportunity to obtain food quickly, Grubhub could potentially be saving people time for sleeping.
- Enable users to set preferences as to when they wish to be done eating at night and introduce some friction into the experience of ordering deliveries that will go past their set end points.
Engaging Socially
slight to moderate negative influence
By allowing the delivery of restaurant food that may have not been available for delivery before, Grubhub effectively substitutes an at-home, potentially isolated dining experience for a public experience.
However, Grubhub does allow group orders for corporate accounts (not for individual accounts), so you can notify a colleague with the app that you’re ordering and they can also order food from the same restaurant.(17)
Grubhub offers a service for college campuses where their orders are delivered by robots instead of people.(18)
- Enable group ordering for individuals, not just for corporate accounts, and encourage group orders with neighbors.
- Experiment with “preferred driver” service to foster relationships between customers and drivers.
- Encourage and train drivers to interact with customers, treating the interaction as important social contact.
Getting Outdoors
moderate negative influence
If ordering to their home, a customer is likely to remain indoors throughout the whole process of selecting and eating a meal, as compared to the outdoor experiences that could come from traveling to and from grocery stores or restaurants.
Using Grubhub’s pickup option would entail some amount of outdoor exposure, depending on the chosen transportation mode.
- Pursue opportunities for encouraging use of the pickup option (see above).
- Offer deliveries to outdoor locations such as parks and playgrounds.
Notes
Grubhub+. Grubhub website, accessed November 22, 2023.
Grubhub Introduces New Kiosks. NACS, October 5, 2023.
Sheena Vasani. Grubhub is bringing Amazon’s cashierless tech to colleges this fall. The Verge, August 29, 2023.
Michal Kaczmarski. Which company is winning the restaurant food delivery war?. Bloomberg Second Measure, October 9, 2023.
Julia Wolfson and Sara Bleich. Is Cooking at Home Associated with Better Diet Quality or Weight-Loss Intention? Public Health Nutrition, Volume 18, Supplement 8 June 2015 , pp. 1397-1406.
Junxiu Liu et al. Quality of Meals Consumed by US Adults at Full-Service and Fast-Food Restaurants, 2003–2016: Persistent Low Quality and Widening Disparities. The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 150, Issue 4, April 2020, pp. 873–883.
R. An. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption and daily energy and nutrient intakes in US adults. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Volume 70 (2016), pp. 97–103.
Sharon Kirkpatrick et al. Fast-food menu offerings vary in dietary quality, but are consistently poor. Public Health Nutrition. Volume 17, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 924–31.
Lisa Powell and Binh Nguyen. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption among children and adolescents: effect on energy, beverage, and nutrient intake. JAMA Pediatrics. Volume 167, Issue 1 (January 2013), pp. 14–20.
Arpita Tiwari et al. Cooking at Home: A Strategy to Comply With U.S. Dietary Guidelines at No Extra Cost. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Volume 52, Issue 5 (May 2017), pp.616–24.
Grubhub Reveals Country’s Top Food Ordering Trends in ‘2022 Delivered’ Report: A Year of Takeout Wrapped in Layers of Comfort. Grubhub website, December 14, 2022.
Steve Downs. A Survey of Modern Life: Food; Delivery Apps, Meal Kits, Groceries and Cooking Dinner. Building H on Medium. January 20, 2022.
Downs (2022).
Grubhub website, accessed November 22, 2023.
Grubhub+. Grubhub website, accessed November 22, 2023.
Nicola Chung et al. Does the Proximity of Meals to Bedtime Influence the Sleep of Young Adults? A Cross-Sectional Survey of University Students. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Volume 17, Issue 8 (April 14, 2020), p. 2677.
How does Grubhub group order work? Grubhub website, accessed November 22, 2023.
Self-driving robots. Grubhub website, accessed October 26, 2023.